


Summer Stars

by Mntsnflrs



Series: Embers [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: AU, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bisexuality, Drama & Romance, Emotional Baggage, Found Family, I am officially back on my bullshit!, M/M, Minor Violence, Mutual Pining, References to Depression, Slice of Life, buckle in for a long one ladies and gentlemen and others, character injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-02-23 09:22:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 40,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23575951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mntsnflrs/pseuds/Mntsnflrs
Summary: Taeil never asked for favours. He was too polite for that, too routed in his role as an elder, unwilling to burden his friends with personal issues or requests. He never flinched in the face of duty, but he was content to hold his burdens close to his chest to save the weight from the people he cared for.He never asked for favours, so when he did, Kun agreed without asking questions.
Relationships: Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten/Qian Kun
Series: Embers [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1697047
Comments: 266
Kudos: 1075
Collections: stuffm





	1. Chapter 1

Taeil never asked for favours. He was too polite for that, too routed in his role as an elder, unwilling to burden his friends with personal issues or requests. He never flinched in the face of duty, but he was content to hold his burdens close to his chest to save the weight from the people he cared for.

He never asked for favours, so when he did, Kun agreed without asking questions.

“You… he can stay?”

“I have a spare room Taeil, you know that. If your friend needs to stay with me then he’s welcome.”

“He’s a handful.”

Kun tried not to snort, but Taeil probably sensed it anyway, like the omnipotent god he was. “All of our friends are a handful. We’re the only sensible people I know.”

Taeil’s sigh was long and drawn out. “I know. I just… I’m at a loss. I don’t know what to do. I’ve never seen him like this, and with Johnny busy on the farm I didn’t know who else to ask. I’m sorry, Kun.”

“It’s fine,” he insisted. How bad could one guy be? Kun has catered to guests before, and sure, they weren’t professional performers, but what did that have to do with anything? It wasn’t going to make his TripAdvisor review any more or less scathing, since Kun’s house wasn’t on TripAdvisor. He could egg the house, Kun supposed. But how likely was that? Was Taeil really the kind of good, reliable friend to send a man to egg Kun’s beloved house? No. Definitely not. “He won’t egg my house, will he?”

“Probably not.”

“…Probably?”

“I mean, I’m almost entirely convinced he won’t do that. If he does though, just make him clean it up, it’ll be good for him."

“Are you going to tell me why he’s staying with me for a month or do I have to ask him in person?”

“Don’t ask him! Don’t… just don’t speak about it. He’s taking some time away from dancing and he’s going stir-crazy, and the fresh air and hills will help. He needs this, okay? I’d let him book his own holiday if I thought he’d go, but I know better than to trust him. I need someone who will keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid.”

Kun could see his summer playing out. Another child to add to the pack he already feeds, nurtures, and disciplines. Another child-leash to add to the basket the next time he goes for groceries. Another box of bandages, a spare toothbrush, an extra comb, some clean shirts. New socks. What else did children need? Based solely off Yangyang, lots of vitamins. Chocolate, but only in small amounts. Vegetables. “How old is he? Will I need to get like, a colouring book for him? A sunhat?”

“He’s twenty-four, Kun. He’s only a month younger than you.”

“Oh.” Kun took the vitamins and child-leash out of his mental shopping cart. He kept the vegetables, just in case. “Okay. Uh, anything else I should know? When will he be arriving?”

“Doyoung will drop him off tomorrow evening. Other than that, there’s not much to know, just – if he walks oddly, don’t ask about it. If he says something mean, he probably doesn’t intend to upset you. If he’s annoying it’s probably intentional, but for the most part, throw him into the garden and make sure he gets sun, then lock the door so he can’t come back in and bite your ankles. That’s it.”

Kun was constructing a very peculiar image of a twenty-four-year-old performer in his mind, one that resembled a wet raccoon more than a human. “Are you going to tell me his name?”

“Oh.” Taeil sounded apologetic. “It’s been a long day so far, sorry. His name is Ten.”

“Ten?”

“Yeah.”

-

Kun liked his life how it was. He liked simplicity, quiet joys, peace. He liked waking up in his house knowing exactly where everything was, knowing that when he went into the garden to look at the morning sun, in the house next door Jaehyun would be doing exactly the same. He liked knowing his neighbours, liked that they had dinner together at least once a week, that they made each other gifts for birthdays, that they were just as happy to see him as he was to see them.

He liked his life how it was. Exactly how it was.

Days of sun spent endlessly in his garden, days of rain spent by the fire, waiting for the warmth to return to the land.

There was rhythm to the way he lived, whether it be outside or in, on his knees with his hands in the dirt or fingers splayed across the keys of his great-grandfather’s piano. He’d earnt this piece of happiness, this life as soft as a feather pillow, this blue skied dream.

He’d earnt the view of the valley from atop the hill of his rural street. He’d earnt his good-natured neighbours; Jaehyun, Yuta, Johnny and Mark, Jungwoo and Yukhei; their close bond and evening walks. The laughter and fond memories. 

Their town wasn’t big, but it wasn’t tiny either. Somewhere in the middle, close enough that neighbours knew neighbours, but wide enough that you weren’t startled by a stranger on the street.

Doyoung had grown up there, along with Kun, Johnny, and Taeyong. They’d gone to the same schools, hung out in the same sports clubs, drank their first beers together, shared so many first times it was almost pathetic how insular they became. 

Kun wasn’t upset when Doyoung left for bigger, more ambitious dreams in bigger, more ambitious places. They’d always known he would. Kim Doyoung with big eyes staring up into the big stars, never too scared to open his big mouth and say big words. They laughed about it until the goodbye, and then they still laughed, because that was easier than the alternative. 

They’d been too shocked to fake laughter when Taeyong had left only a handful of weeks later, without warning. He hadn’t been back since he was eighteen.  
  
Doyoung hadn’t been back for almost four years, but Kun had visited him on occasion, so he expected him to look much the same as he always did; annoyingly beautiful and more than slightly harassed.

Kun was on his porch reading when Doyoung’s sleek car pulled onto the dirt drive, breaking abruptly and kicking up dust. He wrenched himself out of the driver’s side, and Kun put his book down.

Doyoung didn’t look the same as he always did.

He looked _awful._

“Doyoung!” Kun called out, forcing what he hoped was a pleasant lilt to his tone. “It’s so good to see you!”

Doyoung grunted. “One second.” He stomped around the car and yanked open the driver’s side, bending down to hiss something to his passenger before stepping back to allow him out of the car.

And for all the violence of Doyoung’s fury, Ten didn’t seem big enough to withstand it. He was tiny; small and almost painfully thin. His complexion was pale, bright and shadowed like a waxing moon. He looked like he would fall over if Doyoung yelled too loudly.

Doyoung pulled out a suitcase from the back of the car and turned to offer Kun a friendly but strained smile. “Hi Kun. How are you?”

“Fine,” he said, staring. “I’ll take the bags, you two can come on in and get comfortable if you like.”

Doyoung opened his mouth to object, but Kun was used to that and took the bag from his hand without further manners, walking back into the house without waiting to see if they would follow, sure that they would. 

Once he tucked the case and smaller bags into his spare room, where he’d washed the sheets and dusted the window ledge so that it was as homely and cosy as possible, he went back downstairs and found Doyoung pacing in front of the couch, chewing on his thumbnail as Ten sunk further and further into the old fabric as if hoping it would swallow him whole.

Whatever was going on between them was clearly unpleasant, but Kun was the host. His mother raised him to offer a drink despite how much his guests wanted to fistfight. He forced another strained smile. “Would either of you like some tea?”

“Do you have any green tea?”

It was the first thing Ten had said, and his voice was surprisingly clear. Kun had thought it would come out reedy and soft, but it didn’t. He spoke clearly, without inflection or anger or fear. 

Kun blinked. “Of course! I can get you some right away. Doyoung, do you want anything?”

“A hammer.”

“I… can offer you tea or coffee?”

“Coffee then.”

“Okay, I’ll be right back.”

He made a tactical retreat to the kitchen (also known as running away) and began boiling his kettle. Outside of the window, the sky was darkening from blue to an indigo that appeared almost burnt at the edges, smouldering with the sunset. It was beautiful. It was just the kind of evening to spend on a porch reading, instead of awkwardly watching two people glare at each other.

Still, he was doing this for Taeil. He could get through it for Taeil.

When he brought the mugs back into the open plan living space of his home, Doyoung and Ten were silent again. Doyoung was at least sitting down, which was a relief. Kun had begun to fear for his floorboards with the speed of Doyoung’s pacing.

He passed the two men their drinks and then awkwardly perched on the end of his armchair, forcing another polite smile. “Ten, it’s nice to meet you.”

Ten looked up at that, eyes dark and veiled. He offered Kun a small smile. “Nice to meet you. Thank you for the drink and the hospitality. I hope we can get along well.”

Delighted, Kun’s smile didn’t feel so strained anymore. “Me too! I’m looking forward to having some company around the house, so feel welcome to spend your time as you like, okay? Go wherever you like, nothing is off-limits.”

“Thank you.”

“Thank you Kun,” Doyoung said, drawing attention. He still hadn’t smiled at all, but he looked more tired than angry now. Defeated, almost. “We’re asking a lot of you, but Taeil and I appreciate it.”

He spoke as if Ten couldn’t hear, or as if it didn’t matter. 

Kun slid his eyes across to Ten, and it looked like it really didn’t matter. He didn’t respond to being spoken about like a burden. He didn’t so much as blink. He stared out of the window at the setting sun, occasionally sipping from the mug nestled in his small hands.

“He’s doped up,” Doyoung said suddenly, eyes flicking to Ten before settling back on Kun with a heavy intensity. “He had a headache in the car and took too many painkillers. They always make him hazy. When he wakes up tomorrow, he’ll ring me to argue back with all the points he can’t think of right now.”

Ten nodded, still gazing out of the window. “Probably.”

“Are you tired, Ten?” Kun asked, concerned. Doyoung seemed… cold. No, not cold, but furious beyond heat. The frigid kind of anger that was calm and calculated. Whatever Ten had done, if Doyoung had taken him to Kun it couldn’t have been that bad, surely, so why this icy vehemence? “If you’re tired, I can show you to your room.”

Ten slowly turned from the window to meet his eyes. “That would be nice. Thank you.”

Kun smiled again, standing. “Of course. Come on, you can take your tea with you.”

They left Doyoung on the couch, and after pointing out the bathroom and the cupboard full of towels, Kun let Ten into his bedroom to get settled amongst his bags. 

Ten stood in the middle of the room, silent for a moment, lost. He looked at Kun. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You seem nice. You don’t deserve this.”

“It’s okay,” Kun said, not sure exactly what sin he was reassuring. “Just get some rest.”

“Thank you.”

Kun closed the door softly behind himself and joined Doyoung on the couch, this time much less tense. “So what the hell was that?”

“We’re going through a rough patch.”

“Oh. Are you two together?”

Doyoung scoffed. “God no, I’m not stupid. We’re just friends, but that friendship is struggling right now. All of Ten’s friendships are, not that I can blame him entirely for it. I’d probably be even worse in his position.”

“Doyoung, why is he here?”

Doyoung’s eyes slid to the window, the point where Ten had been gazing just minutes before. Now that Kun was on the couch too, he could see what was visible; the moon, not bright but dull and low, subdued against the darkening sky. “We all work full time. Taeil, Taeyong, Sicheng, and I. We don’t know how to do anything else. None of us are in the position to stop Ten from making things worse for himself. None of us would know how to anyway. He needs to be kept from himself.”

“What happened to him?”

“He fell,” Doyoung said simply. “He fell and he got hurt. He won’t let himself heal.”

“So this is a babysitting gig?" Kun asked, understanding dawning upon him. “He’s here so I can make sure he heals?”

“Something like that. Just… make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid.”

“I can do that.”

Doyoung looked doubtful. “Don’t take this the wrong way Kun, but it’s not you I’m worried about. I know you’ll do your best, but Ten isn’t known for being easy-going. He’ll make things hard.”

“I’m good at dealing with difficult people,” Kun replied, trying for delicate comfort. Anything blatant and Doyoung would probably hiss. “You should see some of the kids I look after, it’s like trying to rehabilitate hyenas. I can deal with this, so stop worrying, okay? You know you can trust me.”

Doyoung sighed, deep and sorrowful. He closed his eyes and tipped his head back. “I know. Thank you, Kun. I’ll come back in a week and see how he’s doing. If you need money to contribute to his food, let me know and I’ll send it over.”

“I don’t want your money,” Kun chided. “Just stay for dinner next time, spend some time with Johnny, meet Jaehyun and the others. It’d be nice to have you back for a while.”

Doyoung opened his eyes and smiled, but Kun could see in him, deep inside his dark eyes, that what Doyoung was truly focusing on was past Kun. He was still looking at the stars.

-

When he woke up the next morning, then knocked gently on Ten’s door only to have it swing open and reveal an empty room, he panicked.

Immediately.

He checked the bathroom, then the kitchen. The living room, the garage, the driveway, the garden.

He ran back upstairs to ring Doyoung and wail about his failure, but in his room, he caught sight of something in Jaehyun’s garden – two men sat on the grass, legs crossed as Jaehyun’s dog Chibi got the cuddles of a lifetime.

His breath left his body in a great whoosh, and he sagged heavily against the window ledge, relived beyond comprehension. Ten had the Great Dane crushing his lap as he laughed up at the sky. Jaehyun watched on, bemused as his wriggly dog trampled yet another guest.

Calmer, Kun got washed and dressed properly before leaving his house and slipping through Jaehyun’s open gate, making his way into the garden.

Chibi saw him first and immediately ran to tackle Kun, barking loudly as she wagged her tail so hard against Kun’s thighs that he knew he’d have bruises – not that it mattered. If Chibi wanted scratches, she would get them. 

Jaehyun waved Kun over, smiling, and after another few moments of petting, Chibi bounded back over to her owner, Kun following at a slower pace.

Ten looked different in the early morning light than he had the evening before. His eyes were brighter, more alert, and he seemed more aware of his surroundings. He smiled as Kun sat down, wide and sparkling, no doubt the downfall of many men and women. He was beautiful. “If it isn’t my saviour.”

“Good morning,” Kun said pleasantly. He turned to Jaehyun. “Are you seducing my guest already?”

Jaehyun went pink, but his smile widened. “Chibi has that honour. Ten was stood in your garden when I let Chibi out this morning and he started throwing sticks for her. I invited him over to chat since I knew you wouldn’t be up until seven.”

Kun frowned. “Seven is a reasonable time, you know. Just because you wake up at half five every day doesn’t mean I’m lazy.”

Jaehyun raised his hands, placating. “I know man, I know. It’s Johnny who says that, not me. I just thought it would be nice to get to know my new neighbour.”

Kun pouted, but there was no genuine hurt behind it. He’d forgive Jaehyun any sin. He blinked then, realising the significance of Jaehyun’s words. He looked to Ten. “You’ve been awake since half past five?”

Ten shrugged, picking at the hem of his long, baggy trousers. He smiled again, just as charming. “I slept early, remember? Don’t worry about me.”

“What time do you usually wake up? I can set an alarm and make sure I’m around to get you some breakfast.”

“You don’t have to do that Kun, you’re already doing so much for me. I’m fine for a couple of hours on my own in a morning, really.”

But Kun was used to this. The charming smiles, the bright eyes, the dodging of questions – it reeked of Yangyang’s evasion tactics. It spoke of hidden issues, and for the first time, Kun saw real trouble ahead. Ten wasn’t going to be honest. “Okay, that’s good to know. But still, what time do you usually wake up? You’re here to rest as much as possible, remember.”

Ten shrugged. “It depends on the day.”

“Give me an approximation so that if you wake me up I don’t have to worry about a burglar.”

Ten’s eyes flashed, challenging, though his friendly smile remained in place. “You worry about burglars all the way out here? What is there to steal other than cows?”

“Surely you understand a man wanting to protect his home. What time do you wake up, Ten?”

“Half past six.”

It was a lie.

He didn’t know why he knew it, but he did. Ten was lying.

Jaehyun cleared his throat awkwardly. “You’re always welcome to jump the fence and come play with Chibi if you have nothing else to do in the early hours. She usually spends the mornings in the garden while I’m on the farm.”

Ten’s smile relaxed. “You guys really don’t worry about anything out here, huh?”

“Of course we do,” Jaehyun said. “Everyone worries about something, but the way of life is different in a small country town than in the middle of a city. Priorities change too.”

Ten nodded, but it was clear he had already drifted somewhere else. He scratched the fur behind Chibi’s ear absentmindedly as his eyes wandered around. “It’s beautiful here. And so hot! I didn’t realise it would be this hot this early.”

“Yeah, it can get really humid,” Kun said, looking at the clear skies. It would be painfully hot today, close and wet while the air sang with cicadas. “I hope you brought thin clothes.”

Ten’s smile curved higher at one side, almost a leer. “Why, are you wanting to see my body? How forward, Mr Qian.”

Jaehyun laughed while Kun spluttered. “You’ll get on well with Yuta, Ten. I can tell.”

Kun groaned at that. “He will, won’t he? As if Yuta needs any more encouragement.”

“Yuta?”

Kun gestured to the front of the house with a jerk of his chin. “Yuta lives a couple of streets away, closer to the town. You’ll meet him this weekend.”

Ten’s smile faltered. “I will?”

The cockiness slipped, and with it gone, there was something else behind Ten’s intent gaze. Not the hazy numbness of the previous evening, or the sly intent of the morning – but something else. Something he wanted hidden but didn’t quite know how to cover. Fear.

Guilt twisted Kun’s stomach tight. “How rude of me, I didn’t even ask if you’d be okay with it,” he said, more to himself than Ten. “We – that is, Jaehyun, myself, and a handful of others – we have dinner together every week. It’s usually just a meal and some drinks, and it’s my turn to host, but if you’re not comfortable with that I understand. So will everyone else.”

Jaehyun nodded. “We can always rearrange.”

Ten looked between them both. “If that would be okay, yeah. I think… I just want to spend some time getting used to the place before meeting more people.”

Kun nodded, already planning ahead. “Of course. Jaehyun, will you tell Johnny later and have him pass the word around? We can do another day.”

Jaehyun hummed, stroking Chibi’s chest as she panted into his face. “Will do.” He sighed. “I better get going, actually. If I don’t get to the farm before eight Johnny will chew me out again.” He winked at Kun. “He’ll say you’re a bad influence.”

Kun rolled his eyes. “Like I could ever convince you to get up after seven or eat something that wasn’t chia seeds and kale.”

Ten’s nose wrinkled cutely. “Ew. Do you really eat that shit?”

“Sometimes,” Jaehyun admitted. “But I like bacon as much as the next person. Don’t trust Kun, he just likes to make us all sound worse than we are so that he looks like a paragon of virtue.”

“Because I am a paragon of virtue!”

Ten’s eyelids lowered as he swept his gaze down Kun’s body. “Well, you know what they say. The higher the rise, the bigger the fall.”

Jaehyun cackled. “On that note, I’m leaving. Kindly get the fuck out of my garden.”

Kun stood, and without thinking offered a hand to help Ten up. Ten looked at it for a moment, frowning, before he accepted it and climbed to his own feet. His hand felt thin in Kun’s, delicate and fragile, like a bird. He blinked away his odd thoughts. “Shall I make us breakfast, Ten?”

Ten nodded. “That would be nice. Thank you.”

They waved to Jaehyun and walked back to Kun’s house, slipping their shoes off at the door before continuing though to the kitchen. Kun peered into his fridge before looking back at where Ten was slouched against the counter. “What would you like to eat? Something fried? Something microwaved? Cereal? Fruit?”

“Anything but fruit. Literally anything.”

Kun pursed his lips and pondered. “Omelette?”

“Sure, that sounds great.”

So Kun got to work on mixing eggs and a handful of chopped vegetables, and after a moment of hesitation Ten stepped close to fill the kettle. Kun pointed out where he kept his mugs, tea, milk and sugar, and after a couple of minutes they formed a somewhat hesitant dance, Kun ducking when Ten reached up above his head, Ten sliding across the floor when Kun had to get into his space to retrieve his spatula. The smell of cooking rose in the air, warming Kun’s skin as he flipped the first omelette and poked to check the texture. 

“How do you drink your tea?” Ten asked.

“A little milk, no sugar. How do you like your omelette?”

“Crispy on the edges.”

So he pressed the omelette down into the pan and listened as it began to sizzle. He liked his own omelettes fluffy, but if Ten wanted crispy, he could do that. “Do you have any plans today?”

Ten hesitated. “Is there something in particular that you want me to do?”

After checking the underside of the omelette, Kun dished it up and passed it over to Ten with a fork. “I’m not your keeper, Ten. You can do whatever you like while staying here.”

“Thank you for the food,” Ten said. He smiled at Kun, though it was sardonic. “But if I’m not here to be watched, why am I here at all?”

“I don’t know, Ten,” Kun said evenly. “That’s between you, Taeil, and Doyoung. Why don’t you tell me why you’re here?”

Ten’s smile grew. “Because my friends don’t trust me.”

Kun hummed, pouring more egg into the pan for his own omelette. “You should start eating before your food gets cold.”

“You’re not going to ask?”

He looked at Ten. “You don’t want to tell me. That’s fine, you don’t have to. Besides, I’d prefer silence to lies.”

Unexpectedly, Ten laughed. The sound wasn’t genuine at all, ringing hollow through the room. “I like you, Kun. Depending on how you view the world, that might not be a good thing.” He winked. “Thanks for the food. I’m going to eat this outside and then go exploring. Leave the dishes for me, okay? Cleaning up is the least I can do.”

-

The thing is, Kun was curious. Of course he was – he was only human. He wanted to know why it was that Ten would rather eat alone in the garden than sit at the dining table. He wanted to know why Ten was wandering the garden at half past five in the morning. He wanted to know why both Taeil and Doyoung had warned Kun about an injury he shouldn’t ask about, and yet Ten walked like water, fluid and without care, like he could skip across glass without cutting the soles of his delicate feet. 

True to his word, Ten cleaned up their breakfast mess and had left the house with Kun’s spare key by nine o’clock. He didn’t return until the evening, and the time between his exit and entrance lacked Kun’s usual peace. He felt tense, like he was waiting for something to happen. Not particularly something good or bad, just – something. Ten to burst through the door screaming, Doyoung to screech his car into the drive, Johnny to ring about an emergency with one of the animals… anything. His peace didn’t feel peaceful, it felt empty. 

He should have been writing, but he didn’t feel like it. He managed a couple of pages before admitting defeat and shifting his attention to his piano, but that lacked the usual pull too. He pressed a couple of dull notes before standing with a groan, taking a trip around his house before settling back on the stool and pressing more notes with just as little enthusiasm. 

He ended up settled on his porch again, waiting for the sun to set as he scrolled aimlessly through social media. That’s just how everyone spent their spare time now anyway, right? Scrolling away the hours, the days, the weeks, stuck in a repetitive cycle of seeing everything more than once, becoming desensitised, becoming numb to it all. It was a bad place to be, but when nothing else felt right, what choice was there? 

He found himself quitting Instagram, bored of the wealth, the bragging, the same five recycled brownie recipe videos. He found himself on YouTube instead, volume low. He found himself searching ‘TEN – PERFORMANCE VIDEO.’

The results seemed endless. Video after video of Ten – and it was Ten, his Ten – dancing on hundreds of stages, in front of thousands of people. How hadn’t Kun heard of him before? He clicked on a random video and watched, transfixed, as Ten danced.   
Joohyun was going to laugh at him again.

She’d know as soon as she saw Kun that he’d committed to something way over his head, something so far beyond his reach that he might as well have been grasping towards the moon.

She’d laugh, and then she’d put a hand on his arm and tell him he should know better by now. 

She’d be right, too. He should know better.

The gate to the front garden squeaked, and Kun looked up as Ten stepped through. He was smiling slightly, pink across the nose from a day in the hot sun and he walked towards the porch with a carefully hidden limp. “Hey. Have I missed dinner?”

The sun was setting. Kun had eaten hours ago.

He stood with a smile. “You’re just in time! What would you like?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ten's song - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZpIrYvzJ3c   
> Thanks to all for reading and leaving kudos/bookmarks/comments! I'm sending you all my love in this difficult time and hope everyone is staying safe and healthy xo

Ten seemed to pace his room at all hours of the night. Kun had stayed awake at first just to make sure Ten didn’t need anything, but after an hour or so of quiet the floorboards started to squeak, and deep into the black of night, they didn’t stop.

He’d been pleasant but subdued over dinner, conversing with Kun when was appropriate, but never forthcoming with his speech. 

He was hard to look at.

After seeing him on stage, performing under spotlights designed to ignite his passion and beauty, amplifying it to audiences everywhere – this Ten, the Ten sat with Kun, the Ten sent to him by his worried friends, this Ten that picked at his dinner and let silences fade in and out between them… this Ten seemed an altogether different Ten. They looked the same, sure. Beautiful and beguiling, a fae’s sharp features and an angel’s smile, but the eyes were different. On stage Ten seemed to be born of fire, embers and burning coal and something too powerful to comprehend. He seemed beyond his stature, beyond his form – his spirit dominated the stage. This Ten, with his dark circles, his minute twitches of the mouth that belied unspoken pain, his almost entirely full plate of food, his endless night-time pacing… it was like viewing two different people, and both were strangers. 

Growing up, Kun had always been a bleeding heart, but comparatively, Taeyong had been so much worse. They’d be the first to cry while watching a movie, the first to comfort a stranger’s child that had tripped and skinned their knee, the first to see when Doyoung had hardened himself to stop further pain, the first to know when someone was hurting. Taeyong had been more vulnerable about it, more empathetic than sympathetic, but Kun had always managed to keep a sensible distance. He could help without hurting himself, and he’d grown to be adept at it. Hurting himself didn’t help anyone else, after all, and if there was one thing Kun was good at, it was helping people. 

It was why Taeil had sent Ten to him.

It was why Yangyang visited every Sunday, staying for dinner and a film before he walked back to his parent’s house to see his family. 

It was why Johnny teased that Kun was lazy, a homebody, unconcerned with the wider world.

What if someone needed him and he wasn’t home? What if he was needed and couldn’t be found? That wouldn’t do at all. 

His home, his town, his friends were all there for a reason. Everything had a cause and a purpose, and Kun knew his. He helped people.

Ten though, with his secrets and his pacing, was someone Kun didn’t know how to help yet.

  
-

  
To Kun’s surprise, Ten exited his room at half past six exactly. After a sleepless night, he emerged exactly when he said he would, as if to prove a point to himself, unaware that Kun had stayed awake the night too, waiting to see if he was needed.

He left it a couple of minutes, waiting for the groan of the hinges on the front door to alert him to Ten’s exit, but nothing happened. The stairs creaked, the toilet downstairs flushed, the pipes of hot water groaned, but Ten didn’t leave the house.

Then the music started.

It was slow at first, and for a moment Kun thought he was imagining things. After all, he was the only one to play his piano since he’d inherited it at fourteen. No one else touched it.

It was obvious that Ten was either unpractised or just inexperienced, because he began his song three times before he found a lilting rhythm, fading in and out of confidence with the confidence of his keys. 

Whatever it was he was playing, Kun hadn’t heard it before. It was simple, almost basic really, but pretty nonetheless. Sombre; long, lonely gaps between each note giving the piece an isolated feeling. It sounded like something that a broken-hearted heroine would weep over in a novel about war and love and loss.

Kun lay there for an indefinite amount of time, not quite out of bed, listening to Ten play the piano, one song slow, the next upbeat and somehow still sad. All of them rang hollow, something missing, something yearning.

He lay there until his chirpy alarm blared and scared him upright, sending him fumbling for his phone as Ten’s song jolted to a stop. 

Kun sent up a silent complaint to the heavens for ruining his sleepy peace, Ten’s delicate music, before heaving himself out of bed and stumbling to the bathroom to scrub cold water into his eyes until he could see past the lack of rest. He dressed quickly but carefully, checking the weather forecast as he always did; delighted to see yet another day of sun. Hopefully he could put it to more use than yesterday’s daylight. 

He forced a bright smile onto his face before descending the stairs, only to find the house empty, the backdoor swinging open in a slight breeze.

Ten was sat in the grass, eyes closed as the sun bathed his face in gentle light. “Good morning,” he said, not opening his eyes. “Did you just wake up?”

And Kun lied. He couldn’t say why he did it. Maybe it was the fear that Ten would anger at the breach of privacy knowing Kun had been so worried he’d stayed awake all night, a silent companion. Maybe it was that he wondered if by staying quiet, he’d hear Ten play his piano again. “My alarm woke me at seven, as always,” Kun said. “Good morning, Ten.”

Ten opened his eyes, smile deepening. “Did you sleep well?”

“Great. Did you?”

“Wonderful. The best sleep I’ve had in months.”

What an odd dance this was, lying so blatantly to one another. Ten’s smile was knowing, like he understood more than he let on, like he knew that Kun did too. And still, they said nothing.

Kun looked up at the sun, finding it easier to stare at than Ten’s deep eyes. “Would you like some breakfast?”

“If you wouldn’t mind, that would be lovely. You’re a good host, Kun. I’m a lucky man.”

“You’re nice company Ten; I’m lucky too. Would you like to eat outside again or with me at the dining table?”

Ten sighed, but this time it wasn’t a sound so much of sorrow or exhaustion, but one merely of a heavy breath being expelled into the crisp, warming morning air. “I like it out here. The sun, the trees, the endless fields and the birdsong. Why don’t we both eat outside today?”

How could he say no? Ten strained towards the summer sky like a flower. 

“That sounds nice,” Kun said. “Omelette?”

“You read my mind,” Ten said with an indulgent smile. “Are you magic, Kun?”

He laughed at that. If only Ten knew the endless pile of high school trophies stockpiled in the basement, awarded for years of awing talent show audiences. He was rusty now, but maybe in a couple of days when they felt more comfortable, Kun could bust out an old disappearing coin or something. “I’m not magic,” he said, shaking his head slightly. “Come inside for a moment, make us drinks while I make us food.”

Ten stood with grace, no hesitation or wincing to belie the unspoken injury this time. Either it flared up at odd times, or he was just better at hiding it when he focussed. Either way, it wasn’t Kun’s business. Kun’s business was making Ten a healthy breakfast and sitting with him in the sun, making sure he enjoyed his morning. 

  
-

  
“So what are your plans for the day?” Kun asked as they ate. He had to admit, it was oddly enjoyable to eat his breakfast sat on the grass. He felt further from the comfort of home than he was, somewhere closer to nature than usual. Maybe it was just Ten, his diminished aura somehow still singing of the wild. 

Ten shrugged. “I think I’ll explore again. I met a couple yesterday that pointed out some nice hiking tracks around the hills, and they gave me a map. It sounds nice.”

It did sound nice, but it didn’t sound restful. Maybe for the mind, but certainly not the body. Still – no one had specified what kind of rest Ten needed, and Kun didn’t want to intervene. He hummed. “That sounds lovely. Would you like me to pack you some food and a bottle of water? You didn’t take anything with you yesterday and you were gone for nine hours. I’d almost started to worry.”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

“Of course not.”

Ten smiled, shaking his head. “How many people take advantage of you? It must be in the thousands.”

“I only expend effort on the people that deserve it,” Kun said honestly. His heart broke a little as Ten’s smile faded and he looked away, down to the end of the garden where trees met open fields. 

“I think you might be too soft for your own good, Kun.”

“You think so? You’ve barely known me a day.”

“I only have to look at you to see it. You’re practically begging for someone to come along and break your heart.”

It cut surprisingly deep somewhere Kun hadn’t realised he was still vulnerable. Somewhere that ached afresh, like Ten had sliced away the stitches with one swift move and now the wound was open again. His voice was tight when he asked, “What makes you say that?”

Ten smiled again, as pretty as a daisy, but it lacked humour. He was good at those; expressions that looked right but held all the genuine emotion of a theatre mask. “The omelettes. The tea, the breakfast in the garden, the waiting on the porch, the way you so easily succumbed to Taeil’s pleading. You haven’t asked for money; you don’t want me to pay rent. You cancelled on your friends just because I didn’t want to meet them, and you’d known me less than a day. You barely know me, Kun, but you already act like I’m special. Imagine if you fell in love, hm? How much of yourself would you give away then? How much would you sacrifice for the person you love, even if you knew they were going to hurt you? I think you’d leave yourself with nothing.” He stood, plastic smile still firmly in place as he picked their plates off of the floor. “I’ll do the washing up again. Oh, and never mind about packing me a lunch, I think I might wander into town and find a nice café or something, maybe read a little before I go anywhere far, but thank you anyway. Enjoy your day, Kun.”

  
-

  
He knew that if he stayed at home he’d go crazy, so as soon as he was sure Ten was gone, he grabbed his car keys and left for the farm, knowing Johnny would listen to him complain even if he didn’t particularly want to.

And god, he really didn’t want to.

As soon as Kun opened his mouth, Johnny groaned loudly enough to cut him off.

Kun blinked. “Excuse me?”

“You have that expression, and I don’t want it.”

“Excuse me?!”

“The _‘my morals have been questioned, my honour besmirched, and now I need to whine for three hours and you need to buy me a drink and watch The Notebook with me again for the millionth time’_ face.”

“Johnny!”

“Yes?”

Kun didn’t know what to say. “You… you’re a bad friend. The worst.”

“No, Yuta would have locked himself in his car to get away from you. At least I’m out in the open, rejecting you like a true man.”

“Only because you have nowhere to go,” Kun insisted, throwing an arm around to gesture to the open fields. “You’re too tall to hide behind the sheep, where the hell would you go, huh?”

Johnny shrugged. “I’d find a way. Anyway, if you have something you want to talk about that isn’t three hours of complaining, I’m all ears. What do you need?”

Kun forced down a pout. “If I condense it will you listen?”

Johnny checked his watch. “I have to move a hay delivery in twenty minutes or so, can you cut it down that much? If not, you can come over this evening.” He smiled, that annoyingly forgivable smile he had where his eyes crinkled and his hair fell over his forehead in a boyish curl. “The Notebook is already waiting in my shitty DVD player from the last time you had a bad day, I don’t mind watching it again.”

Not wanting to waste time, Kun ignored how nice Johnny was being and launched into a quick speed version of Ten’s brief but impactful stay. By the end, Kun was breathless and Johnny had his arms crossed, brows high up his forehead and into his hair.

“Well,” he said finally, “Sounds like you’ve gotten yourself into something you shouldn’t have.”

“What do you think of his attitude?”

Johnny shrugged. “It sounds more like a him problem than a you problem.”

“How? He emotionally eviscerated me!”

“He told you that you’re too nice, it’s hardly an unforgivable insult.”

“Johnny!”

He cracked another of his charismatic smiles and waved off Kun’s indignation. “I’m just playing with you. What I meant is that his problem was with the way you were treating him, right?”

“I guess.”

“What is it you said? That he told you that you were treating him like he’s special after one day? If he finds that so odd, maybe he’s just not used to people treating him well. His problem, not yours. Sounds to me like he has some issues he needs to work out on his own.”

Kun chewed his bottom lip and nodded slowly. “It’s nice when you make sense. Thank you.”

“It’s cool, man. I had my hand up a cow’s asshole yesterday, this is actually an improvement on my week.”

“Was… it up there for a purpose?”

“Of course not. I was just keeping it warm.”

“I hate your sense of humour. Sometimes I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Or call the police.”

Johnny shrugged. “Your choice.”

He looked so casual, like he knew Kun would never do anything other than sigh and shake his head, which… yeah. Johnny had always looked like someone too painfully attractive to be reliable and kind, but despite his terrible sense of humour, he was one of the most genuine and sweet people Kun had ever known. But still. “If you don’t tell me why you had your hand up a cow’s ass, I’m going to have scary, vivid dreams tonight and maybe never be able to look you in the eye again.”

“Oh. Sexy dreams?”

“Johnny!”

“Relax, I just had to check for bleeding. We thought she had a tear from pregnancy, and I had to make sure she wasn’t at risk of infection. She got a nice handful of treats afterwards, and I sanitised my arm thoroughly. Jaehyun saw the whole thing, so if you doubt my holy intentions, question him. I have to go see to the hay delivery.” He paused. “Actually, I could use those godly shoulders for some heavy lifting, could you spare an hour or two? Yukhei was meant to lend a hand but he said he had some business in town he had to take care of with Jungwoo, so it’s just Jae and I today.”

“Sure. I don’t have anywhere to be; I’ll help as long as you need.”

Johnny smiled, small and sly. “Not that you’re totally happy to avoid your house in case Ten comes back, right?”

“Of course not!” Kun spluttered. “I’m being a good and helpful friend!”

“You’re being too nice. Honestly Kun, you’ve only known me what, twenty years? And you’re already doing me favours? Next you’ll be making me omelettes and sitting in the dirt with me just because I asked. Get a fucking life, man.”

Kun pressed his lips together and tried not to laugh. “Stop it, you’re not funny.”

“I’m hilarious and we both know it.” Johnny clapped him on the arm and shoved him towards the barn. “If he’s going to rip you a new hole over breakfast, you can’t just lie there and take it. Show a little spirit, will you? Bite back. Or, do that thing you do where you win him over with your pleasant personality, your nurturing demeanour, your thick ass shoulders, and meaty biceps. You know, how you won Jaehyun over.”

“That is not how I became friends with Jaehyun.”

“You’re right. He was in a new place, scared of his neighbours, and you baked him a pie and helped him move his furniture because you’re such a bastard, right? You really stuck it to him.”

“There’s more to me than being nice and having wide shoulders!”

Johnny grinned. “Of course there is. You’re good at magic tricks too.”

Mingyu had left the bales of hay where he always did; tucked around the side of the barn ready for Johnny or one of the other workers to section off into the correct stables. There was a note pinned to a bale just above eye level with the bill and a smiley face. Johnny pulled it from the hay with a sigh and crumpled it into his pocket as Kun got to work untying the string that held the bales together. Wherever he was, Jaehyun must have been using the forklift, which meant all of this had to be moved by hand. Kun could already feel his back aching in anticipation, but better he was here to help than Johnny doing it all himself. 

  
Yet, despite the relentless sun and the sharp, scratchy texture of the straw that Kun had to heave onto his upper back, the chore wasn’t entirely unpleasant. It was time consuming, sure, but it felt good to be doing something. He and Johnny made breathless conversation as they heaved and rolled the hay to where it needed to be, and sometimes Johnny’s pregnant barn cat Baby would come and wind her way around their legs just to make things more difficult, but even that was nice. It was hard to hold a bad mood in the summer sun, helping a friend. 

“-Don’t you think?”

Kun looked up from petting Baby, who was purring up a storm as she sat on his boot. “Sorry, what?”

Johnny was leaning against the metal grating, covered in sweat, dust, and sun. He was staring out over the fields in a peculiar way, as though he was seeing something else, something sad. “It’s weird, isn’t it? That Doyoung didn’t even hang around long enough to say hello.”

Kun looked back down to Baby and stroked her chin softly. If he were in Johnny’s shoes, it would definitely have hurt him that Doyoung barely paused before hightailing it back out of town after dropping Ten off, but then, Doyoung hadn’t looked like Doyoung. Knowing that, Kun didn’t quite know how to feel. “He wasn’t himself. Or… I don’t know, maybe he was. We haven’t seen him in a long time.”

“I used to be so excited to inherit the farm. I thought we’d all work here, you know? I thought every day would be shifting hay and herding sheep and locking Doyoung in the tool shed. I always knew that Doyoung would want something else, but I kind of assumed he’d be back every summer, knee deep in manure like he used to be, complaining but pulling his weight. I didn’t think he’d leave and then refuse to come back.”

Kun bit his lip. He gently shifted Baby and moved to stand beside Johnny, joining him in staring out over the fields. “This isn’t about Doyoung, is it?”

Johnny smiled. “Am I that obvious?”

“I just know you. Life as it is – you like it. You enjoy your life and it shows in your expressions, your demeanour. I know when you’re unhappy, Johnny. You’re pissed at Doyoung, but that’s not what’s making you unhappy.”

Johnny’s smile curled into something else, something raw and hurt. “Fuck.”

“Is… is there anything I can do?”

Johnny rubbed a callused hand down his face, spreading dirt. He looked like a kid again, for a brief moment. A boy with dirt across his nose, laughing with gaps in his teeth as he pulled himself up from the floor, skinned knees bloody. “There’s nothing you can do, but thanks Kun.”

“We can watch The Notebook if you need to.”

Johnny laughed at that, the grief cracking. “I don’t want to watch that shitty ass film, Kun. I never want to watch it.”

“But you do,” Kun said. “Because you’re a nice friend sometimes.”

“Sometimes?”

“When you don’t call me lazy.”

“You used to call me bulbous head, which I happen to think is a much more hurtful insult.”

“Your haircut at thirteen wasn’t flattering. That isn’t my fault.”

Johnny shook his head, smiling again. His mood could change like the wind, blowing cold winter one moment and warm into spring the next. “Why were we always so mean to each other?”

“We were kids. Kids are ruthless, you know that. We were all horrible.”

“We gave Doyoung so much shit.” Johnny laughed again. “God, we were awful.”

“We were,” Kun agreed. “And we all acted tough until someone started crying, and then we were tripping over ourselves to apologise for pushing too far. It was always – “ He stopped, looking at Johnny, whose smile hadn’t left, but had faded slightly.

He hummed after a moment and looked at Kun fondly. “Yeah. It was always Taeyong that made us realise how stupid we were being, right?”

“Yeah,” Kun said. 

There was a pause.

“Do you think he’ll come back?”

“I don’t know,” Kun said quietly. “I really don’t know.”

“I want him to, but at the same time I don’t. there’s a lot of years between us now.”

Kun looked out across the fields again, watching as the sun carved a slow path through the blue sky. It would be midday soon, and he still needed to do some writing. “That’s the problem with growing up, isn’t it?” he asked. “Nothing ever stays the same. No one ever stays the same.”

  
-

  
Sometimes words came easily, and sometimes they didn’t. they were always there, behind his eyes, sentences wrapping their way around his mind as he lived, stringing together pretty paragraphs he’d forget within the minute or never quite know how to put to paper. Sometimes they transferred well, an almost perfect print of his musings, and on those days, he could email drafts with a light heart. Other times it felt like he was at his piano, pressing all the wrong keys, each word he wrote making an ugly, jarring noise, nothing like the symphony he’d thought of while folding his clothes or cleaning the bathroom. On those days, it felt like a waste.

Could he truly call himself an author if he couldn’t even write? Could he claim writing was his passion if it seemed to find joy in fighting him? If he enjoyed other activities more, like daydreaming, walking, spending time with friends, thinking about writing instead of doing it? No praise, no voice of reason was ever enough. He was greedy in that regard, desperate for reviews, for revisions, for opinions to prove that someone, anyone was reading. That he wasn’t wasting time and energy on something no one else cared about. 

God, he hated being left to his own thoughts. Did anyone truly find themselves to be adequate? How freeing it must have felt to look in the mirror and feel proud of who stared back at you.

Kun stared at his laptop screen until it faded to black, and then he shut it before he could focus on his own expression, his anger, his deep-rooted frustration at the lack of anything. It was getting harder, much harder, and he knew from experience that the longer he went without forcing himself to write, the harder it would get. Maybe it would become impossible, one day.

The door creaked, signalling someone entering. Without looking, he could tell from the footfall that it was Ten, back from wherever he had spent the day. His steps were ever so slightly jilted, not the even gait of someone confident on both feet. The footfall stopped at Kun’s head, behind the sofa where he was sat staring at nothing.

He jumped when he felt a hand in his hair, but before he could turn around Ten was offering a piece of straw in front of his eyes, clasped between his finger and thumb. 

“Were you rolling in the barnyard with the pigs, Kun?”

Kun took the straw, frowning. He hoped he hadn’t trailed it through the house without realising. “I was helping Johnny on his farm.”

“Where Jaehyun works?”

“Yeah. He had a hay delivery.”

Ten walked around the couch and sat down with a heavy sigh. He smiled at Kun, genuine this time, but tired. “If he has a farm why would he need hay to be delivered?”

Kun knew he was weak, but he couldn’t help but smile back. “You’re such a city boy.”

“What does that mean?”

“Johnny runs a livestock farm; he keeps animals. He sells eggs, wool, milk. Other farms sell vegetables, fruits, straw, and hay. Not every farm has everything.”

“Oh,” Ten said, resting his head on one hand as he turned fully, toeing off his shoes to cross his legs on the couch. The intensity of his interest and playful eyes was disconcerting after their breakfast together. “I didn’t realise the country bumpkin life could be so complex, please forgive me.”

Kun felt his eyebrows raise, knew his expression was somewhere between indulgence and indignation. “Then tell me, Mister Metropolis, how hard is city living? I bet those incredible transport links and wonderful, modern apartments are very difficult to live with. I bet you have hot water all the time and when it rains you don’t have to worry about your potatoes flooding – oh the horror!”

Ten laughed. “So you do have some fire in you! I was beginning to wonder if you were made entirely of butter.”

“I’ll have you know I’m as hard as a rock.”

Ten glanced down. “If that’s true, you’re not very big.”

It took Kun a moment to understand, but when he did, an uncontrollable blush burst up from his chest to his cheeks in a matter of seconds. “Obviously I didn’t mean it like that!”

Ten shrugged, eyes twinkling playfully. “Sorry, I think all that city pollution stunted my intelligence. You’ll have to speak plainly for me.”

“I do not have an erection, and when I do it’s a perfectly normal size.”

“Shame. I thought you’d be a couple of inches above average at least.”

“Why the hell were you thinking about my erection?”

“Come on, you must do it too.” At what must have been a horrified expression from Kun, Ten continued, “You don’t see someone hot and just immediately wonder what they’d look like naked? Not even in a perverted way, I’m just talking curiosity. You know, even proportions and aesthetics.”

There was a fork in the road of Kun’s mind, and instead of picking a lane it seemed to split right down the middle. One half of him was stuck on Ten calling him hot, taking him to a destination he really didn’t want to end up at, one where Ten saw him and saw him as something desirable, something beyond what Kun saw when he looked at himself in the fading light of his laptop screen –

And the other side went straight to Ten’s body.

_You don’t see someone hot and just immediately wonder what they’d look like naked?_

Ten’s closet seemed to be entirely comprised of baggy clothing. His trousers trailed the top of his shoes, loose, and his shirts hung down past his hips, sometimes reaching mid-thigh. If Kun hadn’t watched those videos, he wouldn’t have known Ten’s body shape. He would have drawn a blank instead of picturing Ten in one of his performance outfits – the red velvet jacket. The red velvet with the slim cut trousers, the thin choker at the base of his neck, the baggy white shirt –

“Qian Kun, are you picturing me naked?”

He slapped his hands over his face. “No! I swear!” _Worse,_ he was picturing Ten fully clothed. That made him a new kind of pathetic, right? He felt like a grubby slug.

“It’s okay,” Ten said, leaning over to pat Kun’s knee. “Lots of people think about me naked, I don’t mind. Sometimes they even get to see it.”

Kun pulled his hands away from his face slowly, somewhere between delighted and aghast at how much Ten was enjoying their conversation. Every road was split with Ten; there was no obvious route. Kun was driving blind.

Ten cackled at his expression. “This is too easy!”

“You’re awful!” Kun complained. “Go and make yourself some dinner, leave me alone and eat a vegetable.”

“What, no handmade dinner for little old me?”

“Make it yourself,” Kun said, testy. “I’m done waiting on you hand and knee.”

Ten rose with the dignity of someone wholly incorrigible, shrugged at Kun, and then danced his way into the kitchen. 

Kun sat in a steaming pile of his own humiliation for god knows how long, listening to Ten open draws and rummage through cupboards in search of something to eat. He could get up and help, but he didn’t want to. He kind of wanted Ten to set the stove on fire, just to make a point. He didn’t know what point it would be, only that it would definitely make one.

Unfortunately, Ten emerged from the kitchen with a steaming bowl of what looked like fried rice, and another bowl of… grapes.

He handed the grapes to Kun. “I even washed them for you. Aren’t I nice?”

Kun took the bowl and stared down at it. “Why did you bring me grapes?”

“I don’t like fruit, but you seem to eat it all the time. I thought you might like to eat with me, even if you’ve already had your dinner.”

It was touching in the way a cat bringing its owner a dead rat would be. The thought was there – some kind of thought. It was there, and Kun had to acknowledge that. He ate a grape. “Thanks.”

“You’re very welcome.”

There was a pause while Ten ate his dinner, so Kun turned on his television and flicked through the channels until one of those generic property renovation shows turned up. This time it was another straight white couple that wanted another six bedroom, six bathroom house for their two kids. 

“I love these shows,” Ten said between mouthfuls of rice. “Even if I want to steal all of their money.”

“Same,” Kun said, watching the dad roughhouse with his son while his daughter stared at the camera, bemused. “Why do they need so many bathrooms?”

“Maybe they’re planning to have more kids.”

Kun frowned. “So? I shared a bathroom with my sister and it didn’t kill me.”

Ten laughed. “Well I shared a bathroom with my sister and it almost killed me.”

“If she’s anything like you then I can understand why.”

“She’s much worse than I am,” Ten said, blinking prettily. “I learnt all I know from her, so be grateful you’re stuck with the younger sibling.”

“I’m so grateful,” Kun muttered, shoving another grape into his mouth.

Ten laughed again, turning back towards the television. In the fading light, illuminated almost solely by the gentle glow of the screen, his profile looked elven. Kun didn’t enjoy the way his stomach twisted as he noticed the point of Ten’s nose, the length of his eyelashes, the way his hair curled just so around the shell of his ear. Even diminished as he was, he was probably the most beautiful person Kun had ever seen. If he were to be whole, happy, glowing as he did on stage, under hundreds of lights listening to the applause of thousands – well. That kind of devastating power didn’t bear thinking about. 

“I’m sorry,” Ten said suddenly.

Kun squinted. “Why? What have you done?” He stopped chewing. “Is… is there something in the grapes? What have you done to the grapes?”

“I haven’t done anything to the grapes,” Ten said, rolling his eyes. He smiled, this time a little uneasy, almost contrite. “I meant this morning. I’m sorry for the way I acted, it was rude. I didn’t feel good and I took it out on you, which was unfair, especially considering you’ve been nothing but good to me. I’m sorry, and I’ll make sure to try harder to keep those kinds of moods to myself while I’m here.”

That wasn’t what Kun wanted to hear.

_You’re practically begging for someone to come along and break your heart._

“It’s okay,” Kun said softly. “You don’t have to hide your emotions, you know? Just tell me what’s going on. Don’t lash out when I’m just here to help.”

“Do you want the truth, Kun?”

It almost sounded like a threat. 

“Of course,” he said.

Ten looked at him, solemn and heavy. “I didn’t sleep well last night.”

There was more behind his words than Kun knew, but that was fine for now. He had time to learn.

“It’s okay,” he said, putting a hand on Ten’s thin arm. “There’s always tonight. There’s always tomorrow.”

Ten nodded, looking away. “Do you know what Geis is?”

Kun blinked. “No.”

“It’s a vow placed upon a person without their knowing. A taboo or law they can’t break. If they cross that invisible line and violate their Geis, they meet their downfall.” Ten smiled again, another hollow expression that rang cold through Kun’s bones. “I wonder what my Geis was. I wonder when I crossed it.”

  
-

  
After another night of listening to Ten’s pacing, Kun once again found him in the garden. They ate their omelettes together, and Ten, subdued, seemed content to listen to Kun describe the history of the landscape, from the hills in the east that held the remains of the old manor house, to the lake in the south he used to push Doyoung into when they were kids. 

They waved at Jaehyun, who stepped into his garden briefly to collect Chibi to help round up the cattle, and once they were alone again Ten collected their plates and went inside to wash up.

It seemed they had found a routine.

Breakfast together, no contact during the day, then a brief period in the evening where they sat together inside and talked about mundane things, ignoring Ten’s limp, the dark circles under both of their eyes, the way Ten always came home to find Kun staring at the blank screen of his laptop. It wasn’t perfect, but it became almost normal. By the end of the first week, Kun had grown accustomed to buying more eggs. He’d grown accustomed to Ten’s pacing. His temper too – hot one moment and mellow, generous the next. 

“Doyoung’s not coming this week,” Ten said on the Saturday morning, six days after he’d first arrived. He was staring at the sun as he always did. “He was called into work and won’t have time.”

“Alright,” Kun said, uncertain. “Are you okay with that?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You’re not disappointed he can’t come and visit you?”

“Why would I be?”

“Because he’s your friend?”

“Of course he is. He’s sacrificed a lot for me; I can forgive this one time. Besides, I’ll see him next week, which means I have another seven days to brace myself for his forty minute lecture on self care.”

Kun fought down a wince. Doyoung’s lectures could be trying, to say the least. It was a good job it had always been Johnny and Yuta on the other end of them, while Kun and Taeyong had remained largely unscathed. “I don’t envy you that.”

“Was he like this as a kid too? A stick up his ass a mile long and a heart too big for his chest?”

It was an apt description. “Yeah, that sums it up pretty well.”

“On the drive here he told me about you too, did you know that?”

Kun’s stomach dropped. “I didn’t know, no. What did he say?”

Ten’s grin was full of mischief. “He said that you were a Chinese Justin Bieber at fifteen with all the girls begging you to tutor them just to get an hour of your undivided attention. He said that you cried at every romance movie, that you would sleep cuddling a pillow, that you were always the first one to offer him a hand if someone took the teasing too far.”

“Oh.” That wasn’t as bad as it could have been. “Well, most of that is true.”

“Most?”

“I didn’t always cry at romance movies, just the good ones.”

“He said that you were always gentle. That you had a lot of strength, but the only time you used it was to protect someone that needed it.”

Kun didn’t know what to say to that. He looked at the sky instead, the distant horizon past the heat of the sun, where the blue began to merge with a heavy grey. “I think it might rain tonight. We’re due a storm.”

Ten hummed. “Do you want to know what Doyoung hissed at me when he dropped me off here?”

Kun looked away from the sky and found Ten already gazing at him, eyes lidded and hidden behind a veil of something unidentifiable. “Sure. Tell me.”

“He made me promise not to hurt you.” Ten’s smile grew. “An odd thing to ask of a liar, isn’t it? But I suppose we’ll find out if I’m able to keep my promise.”


	3. Chapter 3

Sunday rained miserably. It started before dawn, and when Kun ventured downstairs at seven o’clock, Ten was stood in the kitchen with a mug of green tea, staring out of the window at the gunmetal skies like they were raining to displease him personally.

“Good morning,” Kun said, reaching to refill the kettle.

Ten slid a mug of coffee over to Kun, fresh and steaming and just the right colour. “Is it? I thought summer in the country was meant to be nothing but blue and green.”

“I’m afraid that’s just a myth,” Kun said, taking a sip of his drink. It was perfect. “You know, the grass being greener on the other side. If I were to move to the city, I’d probably expect idealistic standards too.”

Ten scowled. “I’m not an idiot.”

“I never said you were!”

“It was implied that I should know better.”

It was too early for this, and Kun was running on fumes like he had been for the past week. He couldn’t argue with Ten with this lack of energy. “I didn’t mean it like that,” he said tiredly. “It wasn’t an attack, I was just saying that when you’re not used to somewhere it’s normal to hope for the best, and of course it’s disappointing when it turns out that one place is almost exactly the same as another. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“Oh,” Ten said. He sipped his tea. “Okay. Sorry for snapping.”

“It’s okay.”

“Usually when someone says something like that to me it’s then followed by how stupid I am.”

The quiet confession makes Kun sad. Ten is odd, but he’s far from stupid. He’s probably far too intelligent for his own good, and for Kun’s good. “I don’t think you’re stupid, Ten. You’re no idiot.”

Ten’s smile lacked humour. “Thanks.”

Kun nudged him, trying to get that small smile to grow into something bigger, prettier, more genuine. “What, are you saying that the country bumpkin complimenting your intelligence isn’t worth anything to you?”

It worked; Ten’s smile blossomed, his teeth showing. “Did you go to school? Or did you just count sticks and consider that an education?”

“I’ll have you know that my education is university level, thank you very much.”

“Yeah? Did Doyoung print out a fill-in diploma for you?”

“I’m educated!”

“What did you study?”

“Literature,” Kun said, trying not to stare. Ten’s skin had been warming during the week, turning from a fearfully pale to something closer to alive. In the grey morning light he looked shadowed again, the pallor of a faded Victorian photograph. “Did you go to university?”

“No, I went to a dance academy as soon as I graduated highschool.”

It was probably the first piece of genuine information about himself that Ten had freely given him. “Oh? I assumed you must have gone to college with Doyoung. If not, where did you meet?”

“Through Taeyong.”

Kun’s hand spasmed around his mug, but he managed not to spill anything. “Taeyong went to a dance academy?”

“Yeah.” Ten’s smile turned rueful. “I don’t know how he got in; when we first met he was terrible.”

The Taeyong that Kun had known wasn’t a dancer. He was shy, big eyed and studious, genuine and self-conscious. During all the times Kun had visited Doyoung, they’d never brought up Taeyong’s life past the usual _‘is he okay?’ ‘yes, he’s fine’_ that dominated their awkward conversations. Kun had learnt early on that Doyoung was almost feral in his protection of Taeyong, that the very mention of his name, in whoever’s mouth, had his teeth bared. Kun hadn’t wanted to risk losing the friends he still had. Maybe it made him a coward, maybe not. It didn’t matter now, not when Ten was stood with him under the haze of rainy sky, willing to tell him what he’d gone years without knowing.

Kun swallowed a mouthful of coffee, savouring the heat. “Will you tell me about him?”

Ten turned to him, curious. “Taeyong?”

“Yeah. I haven’t seen him since we were eighteen.”

“Is there a reason for that?”

The reply tasted bitter. “If there is, I don’t know it.”

Ten hummed, picking up his tea with both hands, holding the mug close to his mouth as he turned back to the window. “I met him at nineteen. He was in all of the beginner classes, and one day when I’d booked a studio to practice, he was just finishing up when I arrived. I couldn’t help it – I laughed when I saw him. What he was doing wasn’t dance, it was carefully terrible contortion. He had the flexibility, but his rhythm was off, he was missing beats, tripping over his own feet. I was kind of an asshole back then.” He paused to shake his head, smiling wider. “Who am I kidding? I still am. At least I’m self-aware now. Anyway, I laughed at him, and when he saw me, he just started crying. I don’t mean embarrassed tears – I mean sobs. He folded up and started wailing, and I couldn’t even make out what he was trying to say when I went to sit with him, he just kept crying into his knees. I stayed there with him for twenty minutes, and once he finally stopped crying, I told him to show me his choreo again. He did, and it was still bad, but after I spent a couple of minutes correcting his posture and stance, he tried again, and it was better. We started meeting up weekly so that I could help him practice, and the way he learnt was… astounding. I’ve never known anyone work so hard. After a couple of months he was just as good as me, if not better.”

It was impossible to picture, but maybe that was the point. Maybe staying here would have ruined Taeyong’s chance to be something else.

“Does he dance professionally?” Kun asked, mouth dry. If he could find Taeyong on YouTube as easily as he found Ten – he’d have to tell Johnny. He’d have to, but then would he lose Doyoung’s trust? Would it breach whatever unspoken boundary they had?

“Sometimes,” Ten said. “Not as much as he could, but he’s happy splitting his time.”

“With what?”

“His kids.”

Kun blinked rapidly. “His what?”

“His kids.”

“He has _children?”_

Ten shrugged, uncaring of Kun’s apparent aneurism. “Kind of? He plays more of an elder brother role. He fosters teenagers – you know, the older kids that get left in care because parents always want the young ones. He takes the ones that only have a couple of years left in the system, shows them what a home is like. Takes them to school, attends their sports games, makes them birthday cakes, gets them gifts for Christmas. He usually gives them money for college, too, if he can afford it.”

“Wow,” Kun breathed. It made sense that Taeyong would want to care for kids. He always cared for everyone else more than himself. “Is he fostering right now?”

“No, the youngest just went into a dance academy,” Ten said, smiling. “Taking after Taeyong. They always come back for Christmas, though. They love Taeyong as much as he loves them.”

Kun was reeling. He’d expected an office job. Maybe an accountant like Doyoung, since Taeyong had been just as clever. Something studious and serious. How much had he been hiding away as he’d grown into a different person? “That’s incredible. How selfless.”

“Has Taeyong ever been anything else?”

“No,” Kun murmured, following Ten’s gaze to the endless grey outside. “He was never able to hide that.”

“He’s bad at hiding everything,” Ten said. He looked at Kun with sharp, clever eyes. “Maybe that’s why he left.”

  
-

  
With the rain continuing well into the morning, Kun was unsurprised to receive a call from Yangyang at midday declaring their weekly visit was to be postponed.

“It’s not that I don’t want to see you,” he said, hedging around the fact that they both knew he was still in bed gaming, had glanced out of the window and decided he wasn’t going to move for the rest of the day. “I just think that it would worry my mother if I were to walk over. What If I got sick?”

Kun tried not to let his amusement slip into his voice. “I could pick you up, Yangyang. I do have a car.”

“I’d hate to inconvenience you like that Kun, it’s really okay.”

“You have never once cared about inconveniencing me, Liu Yangyang. If you want to play Animal Crossing with Dejun and Kunhang then just tell me.”

There was a pause.

“I want to play Animal Crossing with Dejun and Kunhang.”

“I thought so.”

“So can I?”

Kun pursed his lips, pretending to consider. “Well, it might be nice to have an afternoon off…”

“Sweet! You’re the best, thanks Kun! I’ll see you next week yeah?”

“Twice, to make up for today. Let me know when you’re free.”

“I will! Enjoy your Sunday!”

Kun hung up with a sigh, sad to miss Yangyang but pleased for an excuse to wrap himself up on the sofa with tea and cookies for the rest of the afternoon.

Curled tightly in Kun’s armchair, Ten glanced up from his sketchbook and raised an eyebrow. “Were you due to have guests?”

Kun waved a hand. “I tutor some high schoolers I used to babysit – we would have been quiet; we wouldn’t have disturbed you.”

“I – that’s not what I meant.” Ten sounded awkward. “I’m sorry. I was just curious; I didn’t mean to imply you can’t have people here while I’m staying. I mean, I know you cancelled your friends for me, and I appreciate it but please if you need people here you don’t have to inconvenience anyone. I can stay in my room or leave the house if you need me to.”

“Hey, it’s fine,” Kun said, surprised. Ten had taken his dismissal more seriously than intended. “You know you’re welcome to do whatever you want, and if I thought I had something planned that would disrupt you, the least I would do is tell you. I’m not going to lock you in the closet, Ten, you’re not here to stay out of my way.”

Ten’s cheeks went pink, and he buried his head back into his sketchbook. Despite that, Kun could still see the tips of his ears were a bright fuchsia. “Thank you.”

Kun cupped his ear. “Hm? Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that.”

 _“Thank you,_ Kun.”

He hummed, pleased by the deepening of the blush. “You’re welcome. Do you want some lunch?”

“No thanks, I’m not hungry.”

“You don’t eat enough.”

Ten’s eyes rose above the top of his sketchbook, surprised at the sudden sharpness of Kun’s voice. “Yes I do.”

Kun stared him down, equally as surprised by his own immediate dissatisfaction. “No you don’t. Do you have three meals a day?”

“Yes.”

_Liar._

“Three meals are the minimum,” Kun said, standing. “I’m going to make some pasta, something easy. If you want some, you’re welcome to join me. I’ll make enough for two.”

“I don’t want any.”

“Then don’t eat it. If you change your mind, it’ll be on the countertop.”

He cooked with a ferocity fuelled by frustration, annoyed by Ten’s placidity. He wasn’t argumentative, but he was stubborn in a way that riled Kun more than shouting would, a child that wouldn’t take their medicine. He could see why Doyoung had grown so angry, could only assume that in their own, quieter ways, Taeil and Taeyong had too. 

What could he do? If this were Yangyang or Kunhang, he’d just sit on their chest and shove food into their mouth. Dejun would listen, attentive and kind as he was.

Kun peered through the doorway and stared at Ten, who was still sketching in the armchair. 

If Kun sat on Ten’s chest, his ribs would probably shatter.

“I can feel your glare,” Ten said. “Why don’t you use that effort on making yourself food? It’s wasted on me.”

Kun felt his own cheeks heat up, this time a mingling warmth of frustration and embarrassment. “Ten,” he said, “Please have lunch with me. Please?”

Ten looked up. “Why are you so desperate for me to eat?”

Because you need someone to be. Kun swallowed. “If my grandma saw you like this, she’d smack me on the back of the head until I couldn’t remember my own name. It’s wrong to leave your guest hungry, even if they think they don’t deserve the comfort of feeling full after a good meal.”

Ten’s gaze became dark, challenging. “I’m not torturing myself.”

_Liar._

Every time he lied his expression warped ever so slightly, like it hurt to be dishonest just as much as it hurt him to walk. Neither pain he would admit, stubborn to the point of self-destruction. Was it pride? Fear? Or something else, something more internal, something that Ten didn’t feel was worth the trouble of admitting?

“Humour me,” Kun said, close to begging. “Humour the country boy that wants to feed you his home cooked pasta. Eat with me for my sake if not your own.”

Ten was silent for a moment, looking back down at the sketch he’d been working on. As much as Kun had tried throughout the day, he’d never managed to catch a glimpse. “A small portion,” Ten eventually said. “Not much. I’m really not hungry.”

Kun could have wept from the relief that flooded his body. Something so small, but it felt like such a significant success. “Okay,” he said, voice weak. “Just a little bit. That’s great, that’s… it’s great. Thank you, Ten.”

Ten’s blush returned. “Your pan of water is boiling over. Can’t you hear it?”

Kun turned back to the kitchen and saw a flood of bubbles cascading over the stove. “Damn it!

He rushed to pull the pan off of the heat, checking the pasta to see if it was too overcooked to be inedible, but it seemed okay. More than a little bit nuked, but still passable as food. It would do, Kun didn’t want to risk starting a fresh batch only for Ten to decide he’d changed his mind about eating. 

The bowls he dished up turned out looking quite appetising – the sauce disguised the hideous, almost fleshy quality of the pasta, and Kun could only hope that after a week of previous successful home cooked meals that Ten believed him when he said that this kind of poor performance wasn’t common.

As it was, Ten didn’t comment at all. He stabbed a fork into the pasta and ate gingerly, but when Kun asked how it tasted, he just mumbled something vaguely positive and then thanked Kun again.

Kun put down his fork. “Ten?” When he looked up, Kun continued. “Was I too harsh?”

Ten looked back down, and then after a moment of contemplation he shook his head. “No, you weren’t.” He tried for a smile, only just missing the mark. “I don’t think I realised how hungry I was.”

It was an admittance of something. Maybe something significant, but maybe not. What matters was that Ten had admitted something, and that Kun made sure that it was okay. “There’s more food if you want it,” he said softly. “There’s as much as you want, whatever you like. Don’t let yourself go hungry, Ten.”

Ten nodded, piercing more pasta. “Okay.”

Kun felt himself smile, wider and happier than he had since Ten’s arrival. “Good.”

Ten looked up, flashing him a quick but genuine grin. “Good.”

Kun shovelled pasta into his mouth, still smiling. “Great.”

  
-

  
Something happened to Ten between their argument and the overcooked pasta they shared. For the rest of the afternoon he was quiet, even more so than usual. He didn’t stare out of the window or sketch, he stared at the ceiling above the armchair, tapping his fingers rhythmically against his thigh as he chewed his bottom lip.

As evening approached, he offered to make dinner. Kun accepted, too shocked to question it, and sat listening while Ten fried up some vegetables. He hummed as he worked, soft and calm, which was probably why his mood was so disconcerting to Kun.

In the week they’d spent together, Kun had seen many of Ten’s moods, but very few of them had been calm. There was usually something beneath the surface, aching in a way that Kun could see more clearly than the smile that covered it. 

Ten brought out their food, passing Kun his plate with a smile. “Enjoy,” he said.

“Thanks,” Kun said. “Are you okay?”

Ten glanced up as he sat down, uncertain. “Yes?”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I’m sure, Kun.”

“You promise?”

Ten’s expression turned wry. “We’ve talked about this, haven’t we? What’s the point in accepting a promise from a liar?”

“Don’t lie to me,” Kun said, barely audible. “Please don’t lie to me, Ten.”

Ten looked away, out to the setting sun. The rain had stopped, but just for a moment. The clouds would gather again soon. “I’m trying to be okay, Kun,” Ten said. “I promise.”

  
-

  
The following morning, Ten was gone by the time Kun got up, at seven o’clock as he always did. Jaehyun was in his garden, coffee resting on the fence as he gave Kun a stare that was far too wise.

“He’s odd, isn’t he?”

Kun shrugged uncomfortably. “In a way, yes.”

“How is he as a guest?”

“Fine, he’s not a problem or anything. I’m just… worried, I suppose.”

Jaehyun nodded. “That’s understandable.”

It was a relief to hear. “It is?”

“Of course. He’s clearly got baggage, and your permanent emotional state is worry. I’d be more concerned if you weren’t worried.”

“Oh.” It wasn’t a compliment, but from Jaehyun’s soft eyes, it was difficult to take as an insult. 

“Yuta and Johnny are coming over for beers tonight,” Jaehyun continued, turning to a different topic. “Of course you’re both welcome to come along too. If Ten isn’t comfortable that’s cool, but if you don’t come Yuta might throw a tantrum. He said he hasn’t seen you in a week.”

Kun thought back to the last time he’d seen Yuta and feels a stab of guilt. It was true, they lived ten minutes away from one another, but since Ten had taken up residence in Kun’s spare room, he’d done nothing but worry. “You’re right,” he said, nibbling at some dry skin on the edge of his thumb. “I haven’t seen him in a while, I’ll come. I’ll invite Ten too, but I can’t promise he’ll want to join. He seems reluctant to meet people.”

Jaehyun’s eyebrows rose. “Really? He’s already met Yukhei and Jungwoo.”

“He – _huh?_ He has? When?”

“Jungwoo said that they met him in town, showed him some nice walks through the hills. Yukhei gave him a map.”

“Oh,” Kun said faintly. “That couple. Of course.”

“They might be coming tonight too,” Jaehyun said. “You never know, that could persuade him.”

“I’ll ask,” Kun said, thinking of Ten wandering through their small town, content to greet strangers but scared of making friends. How did a man with so much beauty, so much charisma and presence fear leaving a footprint in the sand? It was like he wanted to be forgotten as soon as possible. Like he wanted Kun and everyone else to pretend he was never here at all.

-

  
He managed to write during the day, but everything that came out was disjointed; sentences that made no sense and paragraphs that wouldn’t fit together. He’d planned this novel; he knew what he had to write and yet for some reason he couldn’t. 

He took a break, eating lunch and staring out of the kitchen window at the trees beyond his garden. At the hills, where somewhere Ten was walking. 

He sat back down at his desk, and instead of continuing with chapter seven, he opened up a blank word document and wrote, _‘The more his silence spreads the more mired we become.’_

There was something so heart-breaking about Ten, about seeing him lost and hurt after knowing where he came from, gold and platinum that once shone now encased in stone. 

Kun opened his browser and searched TEN – ACCIDENT.

The first article that came up was from nine months ago, some kind of fansite that documented Ten’s tours and various performances. There were no details, most of the piece was speculation on the journalist’s part. He fell of a stage, and hurt his leg, but that’s all they knew. He was expected to make a swift recovery.

At the bottom of the article there was a link to a related article, and without thinking Kun clicked on it.

It was written only a month ago, published by the same writer.

TEN – WHEN WILL HE DANCE AGAIN?

  
-

  
Ten rejected the offer to go to Jaehyun’s, almost before Kun had finished asking the question. Kun smiled and nodded, said that he understood, though he didn’t. He didn’t understand anything. The more time he spent with Ten, the less he understood. 

He made them both dinner, and they ate together quietly. Ten finished his plate, then went into the kitchen to wash up while Kun meandered upstairs to take a shower and get changed.

He was brushing his hair into some semblance of order when there was a quiet knock on his bedroom door. “Yes?”

Ten peered in. “Can I change my mind?”

“Of course!” Kun said, delighted. “But – don’t feel like you have to come. You’re more than welcome to stay here if you’d rather.”

Ten smiled weakly. “I know, thanks. Maybe… maybe meeting people would be good for me.”

Kun nodded vigorously. “It will! And they’re all good people – weird, yes, but good. If Yuta tries to show you the pictures from his colonoscopy, just politely say no, he’s trying to show them to everyone.”

Ten blinked, shocked, but he didn’t run away screaming, which was a good sign. The impression of Yuta could definitely get worse, so some backbone and courage would be needed for the evening. It was either going to be fun or a disaster, and Kun had no idea which was more likely. Drinks on a Monday evening didn’t bode well, but neither did the shadows beneath Ten’s eyes or the blank pages Kun should have filled with words.

Maybe they both needed this.

  
-

  
Much to Kun’s concern and dawning horror, Ten seemed to hit it off with Johnny immediately. It was alarming, because to start with he couldn’t figure out who would be a worse influence on the other, and then it got much worse when he realised that Ten was dominating the conversation.

Johnny, charismatic sweetheart with a heart of gold and a chest of burnished steel, had less of a presence than Ten, who barely reached his shoulders. Johnny giggled along to whatever Ten was saying, listening avidly in a way Kun had never seen before. Not that Johnny didn’t listen, but – in their town, if Johnny opened his mouth to speak, at least thirty women would flock to listen. 

Yuta stared at them with unveiled interest. “He looks pretty comfortable chatting to Johnny. Are you sure you didn’t want me over because of Ten, Kun? It seems like he would have been fine with it. If you think I smell like rotten garbage then you can tell me, you know? I don’t want there to be stinky secrets between us, even if my stink is the secret. If you tell me now, I’ll be okay after a couple of months of intense therapy and confidence classes.”

It hit Kun oddly. Yuta’s typical nonsense aside, he was happy that Ten looked so content, but at the same time, he’d never looked like that with Kun. He’d never smiled that widely. But then again, was it that surprising? Everyone fell a little bit in love with Johnny. “He doesn’t look that comfortable with me,” Kun murmured, staring. 

Yuta hummed, passing him another beer. “Maybe you’re the only one he feels comfortable enough around to show just how uncomfortable he is. He’s a performer, right? Confidence is a mask.”

Another of Ten’s masks to add to the pile.

He laughed at something Johnny said, high pitched and squeaky, and turned to Kun. The smile softened, losing some of its intensity. Without the laughter he looked agonisingly inviting; warm and glowing in the fading light, his clothes too big, his eyes too dark, hair messy and smile crooked. He blinked at Kun, slow and a little drunk, before smiling again and turning back to Johnny.

“Oh man,” Yuta said, smacking Kun on the back. “Dude. Hate to break it to you, but Ten’s like, already at least half in love with you.”

Kun scoffed, but his heart ached at the thought. “He’s known me a week, Yuta. Don’t be ridiculous.”

“That’s why I said half. He’s with you for another month yet, right? Give it time.”

“He’s not going to fall in love with me.”

Yuta leaned close, smelling of pine and tulips, something fruity and something dusty. He smelt like their childhood, like comfort and camping trips and sitting in a circle around a fire, staring up at the unpolluted sky full of summer stars. “I know what to look for, Kun. He looks at you like Taeyong used to look at Johnny.”

  
-

  
He stayed sober, unsettled by Yuta’s piercing sincerity, and watched as his friends slowly descended into inebriated madness. It was beautiful, in a way, how Johnny could go from charming to plain pathetic within the span of only a couple of beers. Jaehyun was an easy drunk, laid back as always, sat in a chair that seemed to sink further to the floor with every passing hour. Yuta’s personality was that of a drunk, so he held up pretty well, but by midnight, eyelids were starting to drop. Jungwoo and Yukhei had turned up, but they’d only stayed an hour, obligated to take Jungwoo’s little cousin to the cinema to see some kind of action film, so they’d missed most of the mess.

Kun was kind of jealous of them, looking at it. As the only sober one, he knew he’d be cleaning up.

He reached for a bottle, but Jaehyun grunted, waving him off. “I’ll get it in the morning, don’t bother.”

“You’ll be hungover in the morning,” Kun chided. “I might as well save you some of the pain.”

“Don’t,” he groaned, waving again. “I need to learn my lesson. No drinking on workdays.”

Kun sighed. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Just – make sure Ten gets home okay. I think he’s pretty fucked.”

Kun looked over at where Ten was sat, perched precariously on the arm of Jaehyun’s couch, his feet in Yuta’s lap as they talked quietly, quickly, about something to do with jazz. Ten’s cheeks were ruddy, his eyes bright but sluggish in the way only alcohol could create. 

Yeah. It was time to get him home.

Kun brushed Jaehyun’s hair from his forehead and said goodbye to both him and Johnny before heading over to Ten, tapping him gently on the shoulder to catch his attention. “Hey. You ready to head back?”

Ten nodded slowly. He turned back to Yuta to smile. “Bye, Yuta. Nice meeting you.”

Yuta grinned. “The pleasure was all mine. Get home safe, you know the streets can be dangerous at night.”

Ten giggled. “But we’re only going next door!”

It was funny in the way that some things could only be funny to drunks, but Kun smiled anyway, squeezing Yuta’s cheek before he offered Ten a hand to help him stand.

And if Ten hadn’t been drunk, if Kun hadn’t been sober – maybe he wouldn’t have noticed. Maybe Ten wouldn’t have shown it. Maybe he would have been able to disguise it, to recover quickly enough that Kun could brush it off.

But he didn’t.

As soon as Ten stood, his legs buckled, and he went down.

Kun caught him just before his knees hit the floor.

Yuta sat up, concerned. “Jesus. Everything okay?”

Kun smiled at him, strained. “Everything’s fine, he’s just drunk! I’ll get him home safe.” He bent down, close to Ten’s lowered head, holding all of his slight weight between his hands. “Ten?” he whispered. “I’m going to put you on my back, okay? I’m going to get you home.”

Ten looked up, and Kun’s breath stopped somewhere between his chest and his throat. It wasn’t discomfort in Ten’s eyes, even pain – it was agony writhing behind his eyes. His face was white, his pupils dilated almost entirely, tears brimming. “Don’t let them see,” he whispered. “Kun, don’t let them see me.”

Kun nodded mutely. He lifted one of Ten’s arm over his shoulders, and in one motion stood, swinging Ten onto his back, hooking his arms under Ten’s knees and gently folding him up, an almost weightless burden to carry. He sent a last goodbye to the guys, received various drunken replies, and then left the house as quickly as he could.

Ten’s nose was cold against the back of his neck, his breathing uneven as Kun jogged across Jaehyun’s lawn and onto his own, wrestling with his rusty gate with one hand, the other keeping Ten as stable as possible. His hands were shaking, but he noted his panic from a distance, like looking through thick glass. He couldn’t feel it, knew he had to work past it. Panic wouldn’t ease Ten’s pain.

Kun shouldered through the door, pausing for a second by the couch before deciding Ten would be better off upstairs, laid out on his bed. 

He opened the door to Ten’s room, flicked on the overhead light, and deposited Ten as slowly, as gently as he could. Ten didn’t wince, didn’t make a single noise, just sat white-faced until the bed stopped jostling. 

Kun knelt down next to him and rolled up his sleeves. “Okay, okay. Ten, can you hear me? Which leg is it?”

“Left.”

Kun reached for the cuff of Ten’s trouser leg, but before he could lift it Ten shot up from the bed and gripped his wrist, vicelike, nails cutting into Kun’s skin like blades. Kun stared up at him.

“Don’t look,” Ten gritted out between his teeth. He was sweating now, a vein in his neck pulsing heavily. “It’s an old injury, don’t bother.”

“Ten,” Kun said, aching. “You’re hurt.”

“It flares up sometimes,” Ten said. “I overworked it today and now I’m paying for it. I won’t do it again.”

_Liar._

Even now, pain bared to the world, he was hiding behind another mask. This mask was vermillion, blood red. Metallic and coppery, bitter. 

“Let me help you,” Kun begged.

“You _can’t,”_ Ten hissed. “If I let you pretend then it’ll just hurt more. Please Kun, just leave me alone. I’ll be okay in the morning.”

“When will you stop lying to me?” Kun asked. It was like watching marble chip away; he couldn’t help but feel that he was staring at something helplessly shattered.

Ten smiled. It was horrible, a beautiful mask with burning eyes. “Goodnight, Kun. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He’d been dismissed from the room. Shocked to his core, Kun left, closing the door softly behind him. 

He stood there for a moment, waiting for a sound, for crying, for a scream.

Ten was silent.

Kun went downstairs, into the kitchen, and refilled his kettle. He made himself some coffee, then sat at his dining table and stared at the wall as his phone rang and rang. When it went to voicemail, he called again. And again. And again.

Doyoung picked up on the fifth call, sleep muddled and confused. “Wh- Kun? Are you okay?”

Kun laughed loudly, though it wasn’t funny. Maybe he was hysterical. Maybe he was scared out of his fucking mind, confused and torn and stuck between secrets. “I’m fine, Doyoung. Ten isn’t.”

Doyoung sucked in a breath. “What do you mean? Is he hurt? Do you need me to come? I – hold on, I’m getting dressed, I’ll be a couple of hours, tell him to hold on –“

“He said he’s overworked an old injury. He wont even let me look at it.”

Doyoung paused. “He won’t?”

“No.”

He sighed, one long breath. “Fuck. Okay, that’s okay.”

“Okay?” Kun whispered. “What the hell do you mean it’s okay? I thought he was going to fucking _faint,_ Doyoung! I thought I was going to have to take him to the hospital!”

“I’m coming over, okay? I’ll speak to him, I’ll tell him-“

“Tell him what? Whatever you’ve said to him hasn’t worked so far.” It came out colder than intending, cutting off whatever Doyoung was going to say.

There was an uncomfortable pause.

“You’re right,” Doyoung said after a moment. “But I’m going to come and see him all the same. He’s my best friend, and I need to check with my own eyes. In the meantime, don’t worry too much, okay? Ten’s pride is weaker than his pain threshold, so if it were too bad he would have let you help. If he couldn’t handle it, he would have told you.”

Kun made a noise in his throat without realising it; a sound that was breathy, weak and pathetic. He put his forehead on the table, clutching the phone like a lifeline. “Doyoung, what the hell happened to him?”

Doyoung laughed, a miserable, heart-breaking sound. “He fell off a stage. It was an accident – just a silly little accident. He just… he didn’t heal.”

Kun closed his eyes. “The door is unlocked. I’ll be in the dining room when you get here.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning in this chap for discussion of character injury - though I'm sure we all knew it was coming! If you want to skip it, it starts with “When Ten’s management company rang me" and ends with the line starting 'In the twenty-one years Kun had known Doyoung.'
> 
> Sorry I haven't replied to comments from last chapter yet! This chapter and responses were delayed heavily because I am a major fucking dumbass and gave myself acute food poisoning from eating a rotten avocado due to the fact that I have all the culinary discernment of a sewer rat, so I've not had much time! I'll get back to people when I can! Sending love xo

Doyoung arrived in his pyjamas and a pair of polished leather shoes, hair uncombed and skin blotchy from disturbed sleep. He looked even worse than the last time Kun had seen him, just over a week ago. Everyone had declined in that time, like they were all slipping from the same ledge.

“Where is he?” Doyoung asked.

“In bed. You know where my spare room is,” Kun replied. His coffee had long since gone cold, but he took a sip anyway for a lack of anything better to do. How long had he sat there, waiting? It felt like days.

Doyoung nodded grimly and turned on his heel, heading for the stairs.

Kun waited some more. He had never felt so exhausted, so emotionally numb before.

After a couple of minutes Doyoung returned to the dining room, sliding into the chair opposite Kun. “He’s asleep. I’ll stay the night and talk to him in the morning.”

Morning wasn’t so far off anyway. “Fine. You can take my room.”

“No, I’ll stay on the couch.” Doyoung ran a hand through his hair, musing it further. “You’ve already done so much, Kun, I’m not kicking you out of your own bed.”

“I doubt I’ll be sleeping anyway.”

Doyoung’s smile was rueful. “Me neither.”

Kun scrubbed at his eyes. “Fuck. Doyoung, seriously. What the fuck?”

Doyoung looked away. “He didn’t want anyone to know. He begged me not to tell anyone, or I would have explained everything, but… he’s been through so much. I thought I could give him that, just that something to keep him clinging on. I knew you were kind enough not to push it, not to ask. I thought it would be good for him here, away from everything, away from the pressure of life. I thought he might allow himself to rest.”

“He spends all day walking and barely eats,” Kun said shortly. “Is that good for him? Is that rest?”

Doyoung shook his head, eyes shadowed in the way Ten looked early in the morning. It was defeat, plain and simple. The knowledge that you’d failed, that whatever it is you wanted would remain out of reach. “You’re right. Of course it isn’t good for him.”

“He’s not my property, Doyoung. He’s not a kid or a pet or someone I can force to do anything – I can’t lock him away. If he wants to ruin himself, I don’t have the right to stop him.”

“I’m sorry,” Doyoung whispered. “I didn’t mean to burden you, neither did Taeil – we didn’t know what to do. We’re out of options. We don’t know how to help him anymore.”

“You need to explain to me what happened, what exactly is going on.”

Doyoung sighed. “I don’t know everything. He hides from me too, Kun.”

There was a memory pressing gently at the edges of his thoughts, one from their early childhood, twelve years old and climbing trees. Yuta had already reached the top, swaying dangerously but uncaring, laughing breathlessly into the sky. Johnny and Taeyong hadn’t been far behind, offering each other hands and then pausing to haul Doyoung up together. Kun had hesitated at the bottom, worried about his hands. There was an ugly cut on the palm of his left hand where he’d slipped with a knife while cutting up kiwis, and he feared the texture of the rough bark against the healing scab. 

Yuta had stuck his tongue out, cheeky and taunting. “Get up here, Kun! We won’t wait for you forever!”

So he’d hidden his cut, knowing they’d come down and keep him company if he showed his pain. He hid his cut and climbed up after them, listening to the laughter and the joy that surrounded him, and it almost drowned out the hurt. The blood smeared against the trunk of the tree was the only poof, but they were kids, caught up in the excitement of climbing. They didn’t notice drying blood against the dark wood of the tree. 

Kun stared at Doyoung, now grown. An adult, one overcome with stress for his friend. If this was how he felt knowing what he knew, which wasn’t all of it… how much was Ten hiding from the people that cared about him? Just how much blood was drying on the bark of his tree?

“Tell me what you know,” Kun said. “Please, Doyoung. You know I want to help.”

Doyoung nodded. “Can I have a coffee first? My mouth feels like a fucking desert.”

It made Kun smile, somewhat lacklustre and wan, but genuine all the same. Beneath the layers of sleep and stress, Doyoung’s core of blunt care had remained intact.

He made them both fresh coffees, and by the time it had brewed, Doyoung had moved from the dining table to the couch in the living area, his shoes thrown across the room, legs curled under him. He made grabby hands for the coffee, and when Kun passed it over he seemed to inhale it in one breath.

Doyoung put his now empty mug on the floor, relieved. “I feel like a person again. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Kun said, taking a sip from his own mug. “Thank you for coming with such short notice.”

“It’s fine,” Doyoung replied, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “I’ve called in sick for tomorrow, my bosses can do whatever the fuck they like with that information. They owe me paid leave anyway, capitalist bastards.”

Kun lifted his mug in a toast. “Eat the rich.”

Doyoung nodded. “Unless one of us gets a surprise inheritance.”

“It’d probably be Johnny. He got the farm, what else do his relatives own? A storage container full of emeralds, probably.”

“He’d think they were skittles and eat them or something.”

The image made Kun laugh. “Yeah. He’s smart as hell, but somehow still a complete dumbass.”

Doyoung’s answering smile was small but kind. “It’s good to know he hasn’t changed.”

It sobered Kun’s mood immediately, a stark reminder that Doyoung wasn’t here, even when he was. He didn’t live here anymore; he didn’t belong in the same way he used to. He didn’t look at their small town, the fields, and friends they’d grown up with… he didn’t see it all as home anymore. “You’d have known that if you’d taken the time to visit him last time you were here. He was upset to hear that you hadn’t.”

Doyoung’s defeated expression returned. “You don’t understand, Kun.”

“Then tell me. Explain it.”

“I was already worried enough about leaving Ten here. If I saw Johnny too, Yuta – if I had another excuse to stay, I never would have gone back to the city. It was hard enough seeing you.”

“Would that have been so bad?” Kun asked, just on the edge of hurt. “To stay a while?”

Doyoung looked away. “I’ve built a life somewhere else,” he said quietly. “If I let myself relax here, I won’t go back to it. I can’t afford that; I can’t let everything I’ve worked for go to waste.”

“That’s a bleak way to see the world,” Kun said. “Viewing something that would make you happy as a waste.”

Doyoung met his gaze levelly. “I’m not here to be judged, Kun.”

“No, you’re not. You’re here to tell me what the hell is going on with Ten so that I can do my best to make sure he doesn’t destroy himself.”

The fight seemed to drain out of Doyoung in one breath. No more humour, bitterness, challenge – everything left, and all of a sudden Kun was sat opposite a shell of his friend, someone so downtrodden and exhausted that it was all Kun could do not to gather Doyoung to his chest and tell him everything would be okay, even if they both knew it wouldn’t.

“When Ten’s management company rang me from a hotel in London and told me that Ten was in hospital for a minor accident, my first reaction was worry. That’s normal, isn’t it? You hear that your friend, the person you share an apartment with, is injured and halfway across the world – fear is a normal reaction. They said he would be okay but that because it was his leg, he’d be unable to perform, so they’d have to leave him at the hospital to continue their tour. They said that he’d need help getting transport home. I thought it was weird that they wouldn’t organise that for him, but you hear about stuff like this all the time, about shitty management companies that care more about venue revenue than the health of their workers. I didn’t hesitate, just booked the next flight out to London, left Ten a text to tell him I was on my way.” He scrubbed at his eyes. There were no tears, but Doyoung was never one to cry for the sake of his own emotions. He’d done that since childhood, rubbing his eyes before anything fell. It was like he could force the tears back behind his eyes before they had a chance to show. “They didn’t tell me that he’d already been at the hospital alone for three days before they’d finally decided to ring me. They didn’t tell me that he’d already been in surgery twice, had been recovering on his own because they couldn’t waste the time to stay with him when they had to practice for their next performances.”

Ten… he was so small. So slight. The thought of him alone in a hospital bed for days, in a country he didn’t know, was horrible. It was horrible, and he hadn’t had to see it. Doyoung had. Doyoung had seen it.

“It wasn’t a minor accident,” Doyoung said finally. “It was a stupid mistake, but it wasn’t minor. Someone left their jacket on the stage during rehearsal, and Ten slipped on it. If that dancer had picked up her jacket, nothing would have happened. If they’d rehearsed in a studio room instead of on the stage, nothing would have happened.”

“What happened, Doyoung?”

“He slipped. Fell of the stage and landed on one of the barriers at the edge. Cracked three ribs, then caught his left leg midway down. I didn’t realise – “ Doyoung stopped. Swallowed. “I didn’t realise how many metal bars and wires held up such sturdy stages, you know? And it was an old venue, something built before the first World War in the depths of old London, so who knows what kind of safety standards it met?”

Kun couldn’t help but reach for his hand. Doyoung’s skin was pale and icy, like the coffee had done nothing to warm him. Like he was already stuck as he was, frozen. 

“He was out of it completely, hysterical on pain medication when I arrived. He cried, but he didn’t make any noise, just stared at me. I sat down beside his bed, wiped his face until the tears stopped falling, and then waited until he was asleep to go and ask a nurse what the fuck had happened to him, why he had a row of metal bolts piercing the skin of his leg. And you know what? I hadn’t even considered that they wouldn’t understand me. They were _English._ I had to ring Ten’s manager and beg the company to send one of their translators over to the hospital so I could figure out what had happened and how I could get him home. The nurses were so kind, but I felt lost listening to a language I know at a seven year old’s level, having to wait for the translator to repeat it all again it terms I could understand. I’d heard of a compound fracture, of course. That just meant that the bone had pierced the skin, but they said his tibia had something called a displaced fracture, which meant that the edges of the bone hadn’t just pierced his skin, they’d dislodged and wouldn’t align even if they were forced back together. Hence the bolts and the rods. They had to clamp his leg back together and hope it would heal the way it should.”

Kun wanted to throw up. “Did it? Did it heal?”

“Recovery was slow, but the nurses reassured us that tibia fractures were common, and despite the gore of it all, it could have been much worse. We stayed in London just over a month, and then once we got home Ten was assigned a physical therapist and told to take it easy – which wasn’t difficult to do, since he could barely walk. But he was so determined to get better, you know? When Ten puts his mind to a task, I fear for whatever stands in his way. He took his medication, washed the wound so carefully, asked for my help when he knew he needed it, attended all his appointments. He was the perfect patient.”

Living in the countryside meant growing up surrounded by injuries you couldn’t imagine ever truly happening. Someone’s hand crushed by a horse, someone falling from a roof, untethered and snapping tendons like twigs. Sometimes people recovered, sometimes they didn’t. The hand might be amputated, or back to brushing a mane little over a month later. The tendons might heal, or the person might never leave their bed again. Accidents were common, death of something or someone a certainty, but knowing that never helped when it happened again. 

Seeing someone you cared about hurt was a second-hand pain, one you had no right to – how could you complain? It wasn’t your injury, it wasn’t your hurt to claim, but that didn’t matter. Life was one long chain reaction between yourself and the people you care for; when hurt flares somewhere along the line, it’s carried down just as much as love or fear or loss. The pain travels through everyone, a little duller with each link, but not any slower. 

Ten’s hurt hadn’t stopped, and it was easy to see. Close to the source, Doyoung was writhing from the second-hand pain, too proud to tell anyone just how bad it had become. Did Taeil know? Taeyong? Did anyone know just how bad it had gotten?

“What happened?” Kun asked, knowing that wasn’t the end of the story. He looked down at the coffee in his hands, another drink he had left too long to drink. Not that it mattered; the sun would be rising soon. His day would have to start whether he wanted to be awake or not.

Doyoung shrugged. “I don’t know. He went to a check up at the hospital, ended up staying two nights. He wouldn’t let anyone visit him while he was there, and when he came out, he was a different person. He wouldn’t tell me what had happened, he just said he needed some time. He stopped doing his exercises. He stopped eating. He stopped sleeping, paced the apartment at all hours – after half a year of watching him improve, it was like his leg was broken all over again, except this time the wound wasn’t something I could see. He refused therapy. Lost weight. He would talk to Taeyong and Sicheng, but not about what had happened. He only wanted to talk about dance. Their routines, what they had learnt since he’d stopped. How the other performers were holding up. If they were excited to have him back. He refused to answer any questions, but he was content to have his own answered and call that communication. If I tried to ask anything, he’d go cold.” He looked at Kun, pleading. “I work full time, Kun. I love Ten, but I work full time, I do overtime at least three times a week because no one in my company is fucking reliable, and I’m tired. I’m so tired, Kun. I thought if Ten came here – somewhere I’ve wanted to return to for so long – if he gets this chance then maybe he’ll realise that what he’s been doing for the past three months isn’t living. He’s barely existing anymore, and I don’t know what to do.”

In the twenty-one years Kun had known Doyoung, he’d never heard those words. 

_I don’t know what to do._

Small towns bred ignorance, and despite the families that they had formed around themselves, their town was no exception to the rule. Doyoung especially had always stuck out: slightly too tall, slightly too thin, slightly too androgynous for anyone to be comfortable with. He was beautiful in the way that owls were, all eyes and claws. Doyoung’s shoulders remained stiff through years of teasing, years of disconcerted parents mumbling behind hands that he looked a little too queer, a little too different. He’d always been bigger than this town, and Kun had assumed he was bigger than everywhere else, too. Cutting and intelligent, adept at caring when it mattered and hardening when it didn’t. Doyoung had been the one they’d all knew would succeed.

_I don’t know what to do._

Doyoung had always known what to do. He was the one that charmed them out of trouble when they were caught stealing apples from a neighbour’s orchard. He was the one that helped Yuta through his half-finished homework the period before it was due. He was the one that got his licence first, spent every morning driving around town to pick everyone up and make sure they got to school on time. Doyoung always had a plan. Doyoung always knew what to do.

“You told him not to hurt me,” Kun murmured. “Why?”

“Are you kidding?”

Kun shook his head.

Behind Doyoung, the sun was dawning. It cast a pink glow across the room he knew so well, the home he loved so dearly. It covered Doyoung in burnished gold, and for a brief moment, Kun’s heart ached afresh. Against the morning sun, Doyoung looked like someone else. Someone entirely new, not happy, but hardened. Beautiful and untouchable, even in his pyjamas. Ten wasn’t the only one who had changed; Doyoung had grieved and come out the other side a different person too. Another link in the chain warped by pain.

“Ten is just as prone to breaking his own heart as he is to breaking other people’s,” Doyoung said, smiling ever so slightly. “And you, Kun, are too kind to resist helping bird with a broken wing. I’ve seen him ruin himself, and I know how much that hurts, but I won’t let him ruin you too.”

  
-

  
After making Doyoung a fresh mug of coffee, Kun went upstairs to clean himself up and put on fresh clothes. When nothing else felt right, sometimes brushing your teeth and washing the sleep from your eyes was enough. When you couldn’t fix all of your problems, putting on clean clothes could help. 

He was distracted from his socks when a deep, guttural barking started to ring through the air. When he reached the window, he saw Chibi on her hind legs, front paws over the top of the fence, staring down Doyoung. They were almost eye level, which would have been funny if it weren’t for the severity of her barking. Chibi never barked.

Kun almost threw himself against the window when he saw Doyoung offer her a hand, put it to Chibi’s huge snout – but then he noticed her tail.

It was wagging furiously.

And Doyoung was smiling.

Chibi leaned closer, rubbing her nose along Doyoung’s palm, licking softly. She barked again, just as deep, but Doyoung didn’t move, just let her take in his scent and decide for herself how she felt. After another moment she grumbled something and began licking again, her tail still wagging.

Kun saw Jaehyun’s back door swing open, bouncing off the wall as he launched himself out onto the grass, panicked at the sound of his girl’s barking. He did a double take when he saw Doyoung, and Kun realised that they’d not yet met at the same time he realised that Jaehyun was sporting a killer hangover, while Doyoung was wearing pink pyjamas and his black office shoes.

It was charming in a terribly awkward way, how Doyoung immediately tried to duck to shoulder height so that Jaehyun couldn’t see his clothes, how Jaehyun turned faintly green and obviously swallowed down vomit before offering a pained smile and a hand to shake. How Chibi stood there barking through it all, tail still wagging. 

Somewhere in the house a door closed, and Kun’s attention snapped back to his own property.

Ten was awake.

Kun found him on the couch, perched on the edge like he was ready to run. His shoulders tensed when he heard Kun’s approached, but they relaxed slightly when they caught sight of him. He was clearly expecting Doyoung.

“Good morning,” Kun said eventually.

“Doyoung’s car is parked outside.”

There was certainly no hiding it, so Kun didn’t try to bother. “He drove over last night. He’s in the garden now, getting eaten by Chibi.”

Ten smiled faintly. “He loves dogs. If he has to go, that’s a fairly good way.”

He was calmer than Kun had expected. “Dogs are the best.”

“Then why don’t you have one?”

“I’m due to get a kitten when Johnny’s cat has her litter.”

Ten nodded. “Cute. I can picture you with a cat.”

Kun felt like he was walking on ice, and he had no idea when it would start to crack. “Yeah. Do you want some breakfast?”

“No thank you, I’m not hungry. I’ll have some tea though, please.”

Kun nodded, too perturbed to argue with Ten about the food again. Too disconcerted by his placid mood. He made Ten a green tea, steeped it a while and watched from the kitchen window as Doyoung blinked the sun out of his eyes, scratching Chibi behind her ears as Jaehyun watched on, half nauseous, half infatuated. 

Ten wandered over after a couple of minutes, taking the teabag out of the mug. He glanced out of the window, following the trajectory of Kun’s gaze, and smiled. “They’re gonna fuck.”

Kun blinked. “You think?”

“I know. Doyoung’s begging for an opportunity to loosen his tie. It might be a while, but it’ll happen.” Ten giggled at whatever Kun’s face was doing. “You haven’t lived with him; you don’t know what he’s like after three board meetings in a row where no one knows what’s going on other than him. The guy’s begging for someone to massage his prostate.”

_“Ten!”_

“Yeah?”

“I’ve known him since we were four, I don’t want to think about his prostate!”

Ten sipped his tea and hummed appreciatively. “Perfect. You always make perfect tea, Kun.”

It felt like he was in an alternate universe. One where Ten was happy having tea with him in a morning, and they were both fond, watching their friends stumble through early infatuation. It was a universe that didn’t exist, but it was nice to pretend for a while.

“You can stop looking at me like that,” Ten said, distracting Kun from his thoughts.

“Huh?”

“I’m not mad at you for telling Doyoung, so stop worrying about it.”

Kun winced. “Was it that obvious?”

“You’re an open book.” He took another sip, eyes serious for once. “I can’t blame you for calling him, Kun. I didn’t leave you with much of a choice.”

He felt emotional all of a sudden. He’d readied himself for Ten’s wrath, his unreasonable side, the part of him that argued with everything and always wanted his way, and instead he’d received – acceptance. Somehow that was worse. “I was scared,” he admitted. “I didn’t know what to do.”

Ten put down his mug, and with his hand still warm from the ceramic, cupped Kun’s cheek. “I’m sorry,” he said stroking the skin under Kun’s eye with his thumb. “You’ve only ever tried to help me, and you deserve better than this. I’m sorry, Kun.”

Before he could pull his hand away, Kun trapped it with his own, keeping it against his cheek. Ten’s hand was so small, his wrist so thin. “You don’t deserve this either, Ten. I’m sorry too.”

Ten’s eyes widened. He made an abortive movement, like he wanted to jerk his hand back but thought better of it.

They stood there for a long, silent moment. Touching, but space still between them, their hands a bridge between their bodies. Kun’s emotions were a jumble of fear and hurt and want, like his heart needed something he couldn’t even begin to comprehend. He was enamoured with the way Ten’s eyes turned into happy crescents when he smiled. Transfixed by the array of devilish expressions that flew across his face when he was about to say something that he knew would get a rise. He was a rose with more thorns than petals, but Kun didn’t care. He liked the thorns just as much as he liked the petals; Ten’s sharp words and long nails, the way he knew how to twist things to get exactly what he wanted. The way he moved like every step was the prelude to a grand performance, every touch an artwork of its own. The way he softened under the sun, melted into something glowing and receptive, like all he needed was something to warm him, something to show him that light would still welcome him, would still hold him.

-

  
They joined Doyoung in the garden with their drinks once Jaehyun finally succumbed to the need to run inside and vomit.

Ten tensed as he walked, slightly behind Kun as if to shield himself from Doyoung’s judgement, but when he saw them Doyoung just shook his head, lips pursed. “How’s your leg feeling?”

Ten smiled weakly. “Hurts.”

“Of course it does. Dumbass.”

Ten frowned. “I guess I deserve that, but still.”

“No buts, you’re a dumbass and I’m going to acknowledge that.” He glanced at Kun, then back to Ten. “I hear you’ve been a bad guest.”

“I never said that!” Kun said immediately, defensive. “Ten isn’t a bad guest at all, I’m just concerned for his health.”

“It’s okay, Kun,” Ten said, squeezing his shoulder. “You can admit I’m awful.”

Kun looked at him, searching. “But you’re not awful,” he said. “You’re hard work, but not bad work. I like having you here.”

Doyoung looked between them. “Should I give you a moment to blow each other while I go and brush my teeth?”

Kun felt his cheeks redden and kind of wanted to die for a second, but Ten just raised an eyebrow, hand squeezing Kun’s shoulder a second time, grounding him.

“Do you need to floss, Doie? Is your mouth full of hair from gurgling Jaehyun’s balls while we had our breakfast?”

Kun slapped his hands over his face. “Oh my fucking god.”

“How dare you insinuate that _I’m_ the whore here!”

“You’re right, how dare I imply that you’ve ever removed that stick from you ass for long enough to get something else up there, right? What a stiff, uncomfortable life you must live. No wonder you always look so constipated.”

Doyoung jabbed a finger in Ten’s direction. “You’re lucky I’m too nice to get your blood on Kun’s gardenias.”

Ten fluttered his lashes. “It’s Jaehyun’s shrubbery you’re really concerned about, isn’t it?”

“Will you two shut the hell up?” Kun asked, aghast. “It’s the early morning and we’re outside! There could be children walking past! You’re disgusting!”

Ten pouted. “Sorry, sweetie. Doie, do you need to use the bathroom?”

Doyoung sighed, apparently defeated. “Yeah. Can I borrow some clothes, Kun? And the shower?”

“Of course.”

Ten nodded. “Cool. If you just wait here for a second, I’m going to take a nice long bath first.” Before either Kun or Doyoung could react, he darted into the house and slammed the back door closed after him.

Kun turned back to Doyoung’ expecting to cower from the fury, but what he found was something weirdly close to happiness. 

He cleared his throat. “Doyoung?”

Doyoung blinked rapidly, attention moving from the house and back to Kun. “I never thought I’d be pleased to be pissed off, but this is good. It’s… it’s a good sign.”

Kun stared. “It is?”

“You have more of an impact than you realise, Kun.” Doyoung looked up at the sky, the hot sun, the birds and cicadas and endless summer heat. “Maybe this is helping him. Recovery isn’t a straight line, but this is the most human I’ve seen him in months. Maybe you’re good for him.”  


-

  
Doyoung left at dinnertime, promising to return Kun’s clothes the following week when he was due to stop by to check on Ten again. Kun had stepped out for a while, taking a moment for himself to visit Yangyang and go over his latest assignment since he seemed determined to use the summer to forget all of his classes. It was an amusing couple of hours, because Yangyang was always an annoying ball of joy that made Kun want to throw his pencil but also rub the crumbs from the corner of Yangyang’s mouth and tell him he was doing great. 

“You seem distracted,” Yangyang said, tapping at his laptop. “You haven’t even pointed out that I spent discernment wrong, and I only put that in to see if you would notice.”

Kun groaned. “I’m sorry.”

Yangyang kicked him. “It’s fine, Grandpa. What’s up?”

“You’re not too old for time out, Yangyang.”

“I’m a legal adult now, old man. Suck it.” He stuck his tongue out, but at Kun’s pleading eyes, turned serious. “What the hell is wrong?”

“Nothings wrong exactly. I just – life is complicated right now. I have a visitor staying, and things are strained. He’s… difficult.”

“Ah,” Yangyang said, sitting back. “You wanna fuck him.”

“Shut up,” Kun said tiredly. “Get back to editing your essay.”

“I didn’t know people your age could still get boners.”

And oddly enough, after a morning with Yangyang, it was almost a relief to return home to find Doyoung and Ten both still alive. It was almost the easier option.

Almost.

Maybe if their eyes hadn’t been red it would have been easier, but it was obvious as soon as he walked in that they’d both just stopped crying. Ten’s nose was scrunched cutely as he scrubbed his cheeks, and Doyoung had the blank stare of someone trying desperately to think of something stupid to keep more tears from falling.

“Am I interrupting?” Kun asked. “I can go back out.”

Doyoung cleared his throat and shook his head. “No, we’re done,” he said. He smiled then, and it was like the clouds had parted for a brief moment. His peace was genuine. “I’m going to head home now, my bosses have been blowing up my phone – clearly the company is collapsing without me.”

It was clear he still had things to work out with Ten, but it was still nicer to wave him off at the door with Ten waving too, instead of the alternative. Last time Ten hadn’t even said goodbye.

This time, Ten walked back into the house. He didn’t hide his limp. He walked over to Kun’s sound system, connected his phone, cranked up the volume, and started belting Lady Gaga. He turned to Kun, all beguiling eyes and charming smile. “What’s for dinner?”

_Recovery isn’t a straight line._

Doyoung was right, but it was still a road, a path to follow. Ten’s steps might have been shaky, stumbling, but he was still moving forward. He hadn’t lied to Kun all day.

“What would you like?”

Ten shrugged, still smiling. “Surprise me, Kun.”

Kun nodded, kind of dazed, and walked into the kitchen. He had stock in his freezer, enough to make a large portion of Pho. Pho was good, right? Pho was nice.

He stared at his frozen stock. 

What the hell went in Pho?

He’d made it hundreds, maybe thousands of times. 

The sound of Lady Gaga drowned out his thoughts, stopped him thinking of ingredients. He moved to the doorway to ask Ten to turn the music down, but stopped.

Ten was swaying in the middle of the living room, barefoot, singing along softly to Lady Gaga. His eyes were still red, but they were upturned, crescents again from the force of his smile. The afternoon sunlight shone through the window and cast white stripes against his skin. 

Kun must have made a noise, maybe in his throat, maybe somewhere deeper, in his soul, because Ten opened one eye, and when he saw Kun staring he turned a pretty tulip pink, smile cringing up into embarrassment.

Kun kept staring, and the longer he stared, the redder Ten became.

“What?” he asked, laughing nervously. “Do I have something on my face?”

Kun wanted to kiss him. 

He wanted to feel that smile against his lips, taste it, feel that small hand against his cheek again, hold Ten so close that he felt the swell each breath.

He wanted Ten to keep smiling.

There was something magic about him, something tragic. The way he ignored his bleeding palm and kept on climbing that tree, uncaring of the rivulets dripping from his skin like tears. How high would he climb? Wasn’t he scared? It was only a matter of time before the bark became to slippery from the blood. It was only a matter of time before he fell.


	5. Chapter 5

Wednesday Kun was on his own again. He had to remind himself that Ten… he wasn’t going to stop habits overnight. It was going to take longer than one week to stop him pacing at all hours, despite how happily he seemed to have improved the day before.

At least with him gone, Kun could finally focus on something other than Ten. They had spent that evening together watching a myriad of terrible films and every time something cringey happened on screen Kun would slide his eyes over to Ten just to watch the way he shrank into himself, nose crinkling as he shook his head and muttered about a lack of commitment to the role. Without Ten in the house to stare at, Kun could finally get back to work.

He sat down with his laptop and opened up a fresh word document.

He sat.

And stared.

And sat.

And remembered that oh yeah, this problem remained whether Ten was close by or not. He was just a beautiful excuse for Kun not to focus on it.

With no other option left, he rang Joohyun and finally admitted defeat. “Hey. I’m going to need an extension on the revision deadline.”

Joohyun, in that omnipotent way she had, knew immediately that the problem was bigger than it sounded. “Okay. You were already ahead of schedule so we can manage that, give you an extra couple of weeks or something. Do you want to meet for coffee and talk about it?”

He pouted to himself, already embarrassed by what was to come. “You’re going to laugh at me.”

“What else are friends for? It’s my duty to laugh at you when you’re being foolish. I’m with Seulgi now, just finishing up lunch. Join us for a drink and tell me what’s going on.”

“Where are you?”

“Seungcheol’s. Be here in twenty minutes or I’m ringing Johnny.”

Kun could recognise a threat when he heard one, so he fumbled for his keys and darted out of the house. Seungcheol’s was at the other side of town – a small restaurant that served homely food and fresh drinks – but it was just far enough that when Kun stopped for a passing train, he began to sweat a little. If Johnny got involved, he would literally never hear the end of it. Johnny and his annoyingly big mouth, his equally as annoying big heart, would try to fix everything himself. The thought was horrifying.

He arrived with a couple of minutes to spare, but a shiny forehead to show for it. Joohyun was sat at a booth, tiny amongst the old leather, a queen in her throne. She knew she’d made Kun work for it, and she enjoyed knowing it. 

“Glad you made it, Kun. We’ve ordered you a tea and some soup. It’s today’s special.”

He sat heavily. “Thanks. I think.”

“You’re welcome.” She smiled, poised and pretty, and linked her hands together, resting her chin on her fingers. “Seulgi has stepped out, she had to take a call.”

Kun fidgeted under her heavy gaze. “Did you really invite me here to interrupt a date?”

“No, our date was ending anyway. Seulgi has to be back at work by the end of the hour, so I’m just being efficient.” Chan came over in his cute little apron and handed Kun his tea, and Joohyun gave him a soft, indulgent smile as he left before turning back to Kun. “Now tell me what’s going on, darling. I hate it when you hide things from me.”

“Taeil rang me the other week and told me he had a friend that needed a place to stay – just for a month. I agreed, because of course I did, you know what I’m like. And… its distracting, I guess. I’m distracted. I’m struggling to write anything at all.”

Joohyun hummed, pulling Kun’s drink over so that she could take a sip. “And before your visitor? Were you writing then?”

“Sort of? I mean I was, but I wasn’t…”

“Convinced,” she finished. “You’ve become disenchanted with your work.”

Seulgi rushed over the table before Kun could reply, dropping a quick kiss to Joohyun’s upturned mouth before grinning at Kun and offering him a sweet wave. “Hey Kun! I’m really sorry, but I’m going to have to head back to the studio now, things are crazy since Mina left! Ballroom isn’t my favourite, but Sooyoung sounded like she was going to cry if someone didn’t help her out – the kid’s classes are always a nightmare over summer.”

Kun stood for a quick but warm hug. “It’s fine,” he said, stroking her hair gently. “You get back to work and we can catch up another time.”

She saluted, then dropped down for another kiss from Joohyun. “Thank you for lunch,” she said.

Joohyun squeezed her hand. “I’ll see you later. Work hard.”

“As always!” She darted off, the smell of cherry blossom perfume the only thing left behind. 

With Seulgi gone, Joohyun’s focus turned entirely to Kun. “So tell me about your visitor, if you don’t want to discuss your work.”

“Have you heard of a performer called Ten?”

Joohyun’s eyebrows rose. “Sure. Seulgi adores him, she uses his practice videos for choreo inspiration when she’s teaching the teens. Why?”

“He’s my guest.”

The eyebrows continued to climb. “I see. Is there any reason you’re harbouring one of the country’s best dancers?”

Kun lowered his voice, just in case any of Ten’s crazier fans happened to be eating lunch nearby. “He’s injured.”

“I know that. Everyone knows, it was all over social media when his solo tour was cancelled.”

It was hard to describe, but Ten wasn’t injured like that. Not anymore, at least. His leg wasn’t broken anymore, his ribs had healed. Whatever it was that was hurting him now was something more. “No, I don’t mean like that, I mean like – he’s _injured.”_

“Ah,” Joohyun said. She tapped one short nail against the wooden table, thinking. “Long term repercussions? Emotional scarring? Figures. Dancers are brittle creatures; one fall and they shatter.”

It hit a little too close. “Do you really feel comfortable saying that about your own wife?”

She gave him a look. “I’ve had to stay up countless nights with Seulgi while she worked through the agony of shin splints and tendonitis. I know better than most that injury doesn’t stop them moving, it only makes it more difficult for everyone. It’s like an obsession, an addiction. Even when she knew she needed rest, she couldn’t do it. In college it felt like I was watching her exercise herself to death. She’s better now, but it still takes over sometimes when she feels vulnerable. Like if she stops moving for even a moment, she’ll forget how to do it and be left with nothing but the memories of when she could.”

Kun swallowed hard. It wasn’t his place to heal Ten, and he knew that. And yet he couldn’t help but ask, “How did you help her?”

Joohyun took another sip of Kun’s drink, eyes knowing. “You have to make sure he knows that what he is without the dancing is still something worth coveting.”

  
-

  
Lunch overran, because it always did with Joohyun. Their relationship was somewhere comfortably blurred between professional and not, something closer to friendship than anything else, even if she did give him a stern timeline of when he had to have his next draft finished by.

It felt better to drive home with one less worry, one more person he knew was on his side. Joohyun had given him a hug as they’d parted, lingering and close. “The brighter the star the faster they burn,” she whispered into his ear, tickling his hair with her breath. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t love the light while it warms you.”

He drove home with the windows open, enjoying the breeze, the radio low. It was turning into the kind of heavy afternoon best spent on beaches, by water, or on hilltops. Somewhere that the sky seemed endless, that the world seemed distant, that people felt few. Wherever he was, Kun hoped that Ten was wearing sunscreen. What a shame it would be if his lovely skin burnt. 

He stopped by the grocers, picked up some fresh grapes, let the old ladies buying papaya flirt with him a while. It felt nice, but absent. He felt like he were elsewhere again, at peace, but distant. The small town he loved didn’t feel so close anymore. 

He let himself into his house, glad for a brief reprieve from the sun, only to find Ten sat on the countertop in the kitchen, legs swinging. “Hey,” he said. “Guess what? I found some caramel ice cream! I put it in your freezer, hope that’s okay.”

Kun stared. It was all he did, these days. Stare at Ten, half confused, half endeared. “That’s fine,” he said. “How come you’re back so early today?”

Ten shrugged, legs still swinging. “I don’t know, I just felt like it.”

And Kun – he wasn’t spontaneous by nature. He wasn’t averse to change, but he liked it to come naturally, with some kind of warning. Some kind of accumulation. He wasn’t one for taking blind leaps. “Do you want to go to the beach?” he asked.

Ten’s eyes widened. “The beach?”

“Yeah,” Kun said. “We can pack some food, bring your ice cream.”

Ten lit up. “That sounds great!”

Fuck it. Just fuck it, right? So Kun ran upstairs and changed into some shorts, grabbed his sunglasses and a couple of towels. Downstairs, Ten was still in his long, baggy trousers, but he’d replaced his tee with a tank top that showed the slim muscles of his arms, and his hair was pulled back by the sunglasses resting above his forehead. 

They packed a small hamper together, Kun’s reusable icepacks finally coming in handy, and he felt good. He leant Ten some sandals that were too big, spread sunscreen across the bridge of his nose, pulled a sunhat that Sooyoung had left in his closet a couple of years ago down over his sparkling eyes, making him laugh. 

The drive lasted just over an hour, which meant it was mid afternoon when they arrived, but it didn’t matter. Ten had fiddled with the radio station all the way there, singing along to half a song before getting bored and turning to a different station, then repeating the process.

It was a beautiful afternoon. The blue seemed endless; between the sky and the sea, the shades were intermingled, a harmony of lively colours. 

Ten ran ahead, towels in his arms as Kun unpacked the hamper. He stopped to watch as Ten tripped over pebbles, danced over holes in the sand, running towards the waves like he wasn’t going to stop. It would surprise Kun to find out that Ten was some kind of mythical creature, a mermaid, or a siren. Something more than human, something that belonged past human reach. 

Ten turned back to face Kun, laughing against the wind. “Hurry up!” he shouted. “The sun won’t be out forever!”

He was right.

Kun locked his car and joined Ten on the beach. They were surrounded by families, by couples and children and friends all making the most of the hot afternoon, and still Kun felt distant. He felt like he was watching the day in hindsight, like he already knew how special this moment was because he’d already lost it.

“You look so handsome in the sun,” Ten said, taking a bite of his ice cream. Of course he bit it; he wouldn’t lick it like a normal person. It made Kun smile, despite himself. “Who knew Qian Kun, a humble farm boy, could look so good?”

“I’m always handsome.”

Ten’s smile widened. “Yeah, but if I admit that then it’ll go straight to your head, and we can’t have your head getting any bigger, can we? You can barely carry it as things are.”

“You just said I was handsome and now you’re saying my head is huge?”

“Maybe I like big heads,” Ten said. Behind his sunglasses, his eyes were unknown. “Maybe I like you.”

“I doubt it,” Kun muttered, no heat behind his words. “Your world is bigger than me and my head.”

“Don’t you know, Kun?” Ten asked. “Your head is bigger than everything. It’s all I can see.”

He snorted; couldn’t help but laugh. “God,” he said, “You’re the worst.”

Ten nodded, eating more of his ice cream. “Yeah, I am.” He paused, looked around for a moment before sighing, deep and freeing. “The air here is good. Fresh. I feel reborn.”

He looked it. 

“I wish I’d brought my sketchbook,” he continued. “I would have loved to have drawn.”

“I can bring you back,” Kun murmured. “Whenever you like.”

Ten smiled, crooked, like he didn’t quite believe the offer was genuine. “Oh yeah?”

“Yes,” Kun said. _You have to make sure he knows that what he is without the dancing is still something worth coveting._ “Tomorrow, if you like. We can go early in the morning, spend all day here. I could make us real food, pack some drinks, some spare towels and diving shorts. I could bring a novel and you could bring your sketch book.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” he said. “We can stay as long as you like.”

Ten looked out towards the horizon, the lazy sun lowering steadily into the ocean. “I think I’d like that,” he said quietly, the words almost swept away by the wind. “Just us?”

“If that’s what you want.”

Ten smiled, small. “Yeah. That’s what I want.”

  
-

  
He slept all the way home, and Kun was half convinced he would crash the car with the amount of times he found himself yanking his attention away from the way Ten’s profile glowed in the soft evening light. 

By the time he pulled into his driveway, it was already dark, and Ten didn’t stir.

Kun moved the hamper first, taking it through to the kitchen with the sandy towels, and then returned to the car for Ten, shaking him awake gently. 

Ten made a demanding noise, the groan of a disturbed cat, before blinking his eyes open and staring blearily at Kun, who was crouched in the doorway. “What?”

“We’re home,” Kun said. “Come on, come and get some rest. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”

“My leg hurts,” Ten admitted, voice petulant. “I don’t want to move.”

Kun sighed, trying not to smile. This wasn’t the kind of behaviour he encouraged in Yangyang or Kunhang, but Ten was already an adult, grown and secure in his nature. What damage could one time do? “Okay,” Kun said, standing. “Arms up and out.”

Ten complied without questioning, so Kun got to work unbuckling his seatbelt. With Ten free, Kun slid one hand under his knees, the other behind his back. Ten made another noise, quieter this time, more pleased than unhappy, as he was shifted into Kun’s arms and carried into the house.

“This is cheesy,” he whispered into Kun’s neck as they climbed the stairs. “Like something out of one of your novels.”

Kun nearly dropped him. “You’ve read my books?”

He could feel Ten’s sleepy smile against his neck. “Every single one. They’re pretty, if not a little predictable. I like the way you write. It sounds pink to me, blushing and balmy. Comforting.”

He placed Ten on the bed, pulling back the sheets and removing Ten’s shoes. “I’m struggling to write at the moment,” he said quietly, half convinced Ten was already asleep.

“Not because of me, I hope.”

Kun looked at him. “I don’t think so,” he said.

Ten smiled against the pillow, eyes still closed. “What a liar you've become, Kun. I must be a bad influence.” He opened one eye, locating Kun in the room before closing it again. “But don’t worry. Sometimes you need a catalyst to shake you up and remind you that things can be different. Maybe it’s time for you to write something different.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know,” Ten replied, definitely drifting now. “Your books are so lovely, so full of calm. Maybe you need an explosion of colour in your pretty pink world.”

“Goodnight, Ten,” Kun whispered.

“Goodnight, Kun. Don’t stay awake for me tonight, okay? I wont pace, I’m too sore for that. I’ll sleep if you do.”

“It’s a deal,” he said, trying desperately not to fall in love. 

  
-

  
They set out at dawn, the sun behind them. Ten chattered excitedly, counting his pencils and pens as he organised the bag of supplies on his lap. 

Kun was quiet, content to listen to his rambling nothings.

They’d thought they’d be the first on the beach, but they weren’t. They beat the crowds, but along the expanse of sand, closer to the sea, sat an elderly couple watching the sunrise.

The woman was staring out at the sea, smiling, and the man was staring at her. They were holding hands, feet stretched out and toes touching. Barefoot together in the morning light.

“They’re wonderful, aren’t they?” Ten asked, following Kun’s gaze. “I want that.”

“To be old?”

“To be old and happy,” Ten said. “To come to the beach in the early morning with the person I love, staring at the waves while we hold hands and stay close. There’s nothing more beautiful than the love and happiness between two people that have grown old together, that lived their lives knowing they’d found their special person.”

If a child hadn’t run past into the sea at that moment, Kun might have done something stupid like lean over and take Ten’s hand. He might have done something stupid like kiss him. 

Instead, a girl ran past, squealing as her small feet touched the beginning of the water, and the tranquillity of the moment shifted into a different tone of serenity. 

“Why don’t you sketch them?” Kun asked.

Ten startled, surprised. “You think?”

“I bet they’d like it if you did,” Kun said, finding himself still too earnest to be comfortable. He cleared his throat. “I know if I was sat with the person I love I’d be happy if someone thought we looked good enough to draw.”

So Ten got to work. He hunched over his sketchbook, working from all angles as he spread himself across his towel. Kun opened his novel and pretended to read while he watched Ten, unable to focus on a single thing that wasn’t the man next to him. 

When he was finished, minutes or hours later, Ten stood up and jogged over to the old couple, ripping the page from his book to give to them. The woman gasped, delighted, and said something to Ten that made him blush and bow. 

Kun hadn’t caught sight of the drawing, too focused on Ten’s expression as he made his art, but maybe that was for the best. Maybe it would hurt less in the long term if he didn’t know how Ten drew his happiness.

  
-

  
Ten paced again that night, long, aching pathways through his bedroom and the rest of the house. He knocked on Kun’s door at seven o’clock, peering in with his pyjama bottoms trailing the floor. “Come walking with me today,” he said.

Kun blinked from his bed, disorientated. “Huh?”

“Now that I know you’re not actually working while I’m gone, you have no excuse. Come walking with me.”

“Your leg will never stop hurting if you don’t give it time to heal,” Kun said, too sleep muddled to consider being delicate.

Ten didn’t so much as blink. “I know. Are you coming with me or not?”

Kun fell back against his pillows. “Yeah. Give me ten minutes.”

“I’ll be waiting in the garden.”

  
-

  
So Friday they walked together. Kun saw in person when Ten reached his limit and began wincing, and then pushed past it anyway and continued walking.

“I don’t like this,” Kun said, midway through a forest trail. The canopy above shone golden green, casting a shimmer of shadows across their faces. With each step, the lines beside Ten’s eyes deepened, a sure sign of discomfort. “I don’t like you continuing to hurt yourself like this.”

Ten hummed, dragging his hands along stray flowers, fingertips graceful amongst the bright petals. “I have to keep up my athleticism, Kun.”

“You have to rest.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

“The fun is that when this is over there will be something of you left. Grinding yourself to dust isn’t fun. Dust isn’t a good existence.”

“Everything becomes dust, silly. We all become ashes eventually.” Ten spun, opening his arms as he wandered forward, still spinning. He turned his face to the veiled sky and smiled, an obscenely blissful expression that spoke of bone deep denial. “It’s magic here, isn’t it Kun? Can you feel the magic? Everything here is alive, growing, moving forward. We’re surrounded by living creatures in this ancient land. Can you feel the magic of it all?”

He stared at Ten, as he always did. “I can now,” he said.

  
-

  
Doyoung cancelled his visit once more, spitting fire at his bosses for keeping him at work. This time, there was no worry from Kun. He knew it wasn’t personal, that Doyoung would rather be doing literally anything other than accountancy on a Saturday, that it wasn’t his anger at Ten keeping him away.

Ten shrugged when the call ended, unbothered. “I’ve lived with him for three years already. What’s another week?”

“It’s odd that we’d never met before you came to stay,” Kun mused, passing Ten an ice cream. They were sat in the garden, listening to Jaehyun play with Chibi, her head occasionally popping up over the fence to bark happily as the ball was thrown. “I’ve been to Doyoung’s apartment and we’ve never once ran into each other.”  
  
“I travel most of the year,” Ten said, replying easily. “It was the reason we moved in together in the first place; I didn’t want to spend money on an entire apartment for myself when I’d be in it like two months a year, so Doyoung said I could pay him rent for his spare room.” His gaze turned sly, knowing. “Or if you mean that you’ve visited in the past ten months or so and haven’t seen me, that also makes sense. I didn’t leave my room.”

“Was it the pain?”

Ten laughed. “Of course not, Kun. It was humiliation, plain and simple. When things were getting better, I could swallow my pride and accept when I needed help but –“ he stopped, turning away. After a moment he found himself again. “I don’t want to talk about this. Let’s talk about something else. Are you single, Kun?”

_“Huh?”_

“I’m assuming you are since you haven’t been on a date in the past two weeks and no one lives with you. Am I right?”

“Yes, but-“

“But?”

“I mean… no buts,” he trailed off. “I’m single.”

Ten smiled. “Good. I’d hate to have a crush on a taken man.”

Kun’s thoughts drew to a holt. “Crush?” he repeated faintly.

“I’m going to break Doyoung’s promise,” Ten said, smile curling slightly bitter at the edges. “I just can’t help myself, can I? What a selfish creature. Maybe that’s my Geis. If only you weren’t so _you,_ Kun. Things would be easier if you weren’t you.”

“But I _am_ me,” he said, lost. “And you are you. What does that mean?”

Ten leant forward and pressed his cold, sweet lips to Kun’s, the taste of caramel ice cream between them. “The summer stars aligned perfectly just to break our hearts.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank u to everyone for the well wishes! I have overcome my avocado ailment and will endeavour to continue posting. Sending everyone love! xo

Ten smelt expensive. 

It was the only thing Kun could think about as they lay together in bed, staring sleepily at one another in a rare, unguarded moment. 

Ten smelt like incense, something smoky and deep, but not cloying. He smelt like something you would expect to taste at the back of your throat as you kissed a queen’s gloved hand. Something you knew you weren’t worthy of knowing – a sense you weren’t worthy of experiencing. 

He blinked lethargically, reaching out one hand to brush a stray hair from Kun’s forehead. “What are you thinking about?”

_How beautiful you are. How, even fully clothed, this is the closest I’ve felt to anyone. How empty this home will feel without you in it._

“You smell good,” Kun murmured. 

Ten’s pretty smile, squashed against the pillow, was somehow twice as charming for all the imperfection of it. “You smell good too. Like citrus.”

“Citrus?”

“Yeah. Sharp and fresh, but still homely. Grapefruit and rose.”

He’d been quiet since the kiss. Not subdued in a way that spoke of anger or fear, but more of a dreamlike state. The afternoon had been spent in the garden, sat together, hands touching but nothing else, barely speaking. Only minutes after Kun had said goodnight and climbed into bed, Ten had knocked on the door and climbed in beside him, all yellow pyjamas and sleepy eyes. 

It hurt. Kun had spent his whole adult life romanticising small things, writing about love as if it were something quick and easy, half content to lie, half hoping to eventually find some truth in his own words. Could it really be as simple as finding the right person? If it were so simple, Johnny wouldn’t break hearts by merely existing. If it were so simple, Jaehyun wouldn’t have had to move into a tiny town to escape his heartbreak and start a new life. If it were so simple, Doyoung wouldn’t be in love with working himself to death, Yuta wouldn’t spend his evenings with stranger after stranger, Taeyong wouldn’t be unknown, away from the sweetheart he’d never worked up the courage to confess too.

But then – what about Joohyun and Seulgi? What about Kun’s parents, who decades on were still surprising each other with flowers? What about Sooyoung and her husband Sungjae? How did the kindest woman find a shy, giggly man that adored her as much as she adored the world? What about the characters in Kun’s novels, each one in a relationship that seemed almost too ideal to reflect reality; not perfect but flawed in such an endearing way. What about Ten? Ten, who inspired, who enchanted, who broke hearts with one hand and healed then with the other? 

If love wasn’t easy, why was it so easy to fall in love with Ten?

_Two weeks._

That was why. Love wasn’t easy; it was brief bliss and lasting scars. 

Kun had two weeks to feel the sun on his skin, and then life would go back to his shades of pink and fade into autumn and winter. 

“You’re not thinking about smell anymore,” Ten said quietly. “You look unhappy.”

He didn’t want to burden Ten. Ten was with him to rest – to heal. He didn’t need Kun’s feelings weighing him down when he was barely above water as it was. Besides. Brief bliss and lasting scars were concepts Ten was already awfully familiar with.

“Why didn’t you let your leg heal?” Kun found himself asking. In the soft shadow of night, it didn’t seem like such a momentous ask. Nestled in Kun’s sheets, surely Ten knew by now that Kun wasn’t going to hurt him further. He was safe here.

Ten smiled, disappointed. “We were doing so well, Kun.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” Kun replied. “It’s your secret, but I’d like to know if you’d let me. I’d like to understand.”

“Understand what?”

“You.”

“I don’t like talking about it.”

“I know. But I think it would help you if you did.”

“How would it help me to bring everything back up?”

“You’re holding your pain so close to your chest,” Kun said, reaching out. He put his hand over Ten’s on the sheet between them, clasping gently. “You need to let it go if you want to have your hands open to receive your future.”

Ten’s smile grew into something sharp and mean. “Really? You want to hear the grizzly details, Kun? How I could see the bone poking out of my own leg? Or how I spent days on my own in a hospital thousands of miles away from home, wondering if I would ever walk again?”

It was unleashed with the intent to hurt, and it met its mark. Kun took a deep breath and tried to rid himself of the ghost of Ten’s pain, instead focusing on the Ten in front of him, writhing away from acknowledging the wound still open and bleeding. He still didn’t feel comfortable enough to tell, but – well. Kun made a living out of telling.

“When I was about eight years old, I saw my neighbour cheating on his wife,” he told Ten, unprompted. Ten’s eyes widened, confused at first, but at least willing to listen. “I was walking to the store to pick up some fresh bread so my mother could make my dad’s work lunch, and I recognised his car down the street. I saw him sat in it with an unfamiliar woman, and they were kissing. I didn’t realise at the time what was happening, but I knew it was wrong. I felt it in the way children do. They don’t understand, but they know. He saw me staring and completely freaked out. He walked me into the store, babbling the whole time about how sometimes dads can have special friends, that it was totally normal and not something that needed to be talked about. He bought me a bar of chocolate and told me I shouldn’t talk about it to anyone. He asked me to promise, so I did.”

Ten’s confusion had turned to curiosity. “So what did you do?”

“I told my mother as soon as I got home. I knew that if he wanted me to keep it a secret from my parents, then whatever it was I was hiding was bad, and I didn’t want that kind of responsibility. I didn’t realise at the time why my parents were so angry with him though, or why they had to go and speak to his wife. It wasn’t until I was older that I realised how fucked up it was that he’d asked me to keep his affair a secret and tried to bribe me with chocolate. I’m glad I told my mother, because that kind of weight would have affected me for years, maybe into adulthood. It affected me anyway, I think, but things could have been worse.”

“How has it affected you?”

“I hate adults that don’t respect children. Not the ones that don’t like kids – that’s normal, if not a little assholeish. I mean the ones that manipulate them and act like they’re stupid or some form of lesser lifeform. That neighbour made me feel like it was my duty to keep his affair a secret, and I was an eight-year-old boy that lived down the street. He ate dinner with my family every month, and I would play with his kids on the weekends. It makes me feel sick to think that he was only a decade or so older than I am now. It makes me feel sick to think that any adult would think that manipulating a child is okay.”

Ten nodded. 

“I’m really vocal about it,” Kun admitted. “I don’t even have a kid, but I’ve had to go to parent-teacher conferences for Yangyang before when his parents were working, and I’ve gotten into so many arguments with teachers that thought that because Yangyang acted out he was dumb. He’s not dumb, he’s one of the smartest kids I’ve ever known in my life, he was just bored. He’s had some amazing teachers that really helped him thrive, but for every one that helped there was another that made him feel like shit because he could finish their worksheets in minutes but didn’t know how to sit still. It was like they were trying to iron out his spirit instead of encouraging him to enjoy learning, which is why I ended up tutoring him after he got old enough to stop needing a babysitter. I’m not saying he wasn’t a little nightmare, because he really was, but - it breaks my heart when someone gives up on a child.”

“He sounds lucky to have you.”

Kun felt himself redden despite the situation. “He wouldn’t agree with you, but I appreciate the sentiment.”

“I’d never tell Doyoung that I’m lucky to have him, but it’s true all the same.” Ten shrugged. “Just because he’d bluster doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you.”

It was oddly comforting. As much as Yangyang complained, he still sat happily and worked through his questions with Kun every week. He still took a selfie with his college acceptance and sent it to Kun before his parents. “Thank you for saying so.”

“You’re welcome.” Ten grinned. “I especially enjoyed how your longwinded backstory led neatly into the moral that sharing secrets is better for your soul than internalising sins. Or something. I’m not the author here.”

Oh man. “Was it that obvious?”

“Yeah, it wasn’t subtle.”

But Ten didn’t look angry. He looked tired, soft, and ever so slightly amused. He looked perfect in bed, yellow pyjamas eschew, eyes lidded and heavy, hair messy against the pillow. Kun wanted to hold him, but he didn’t want to force anything. He needed Ten to make the movements he was comfortable with. “I just want you to know you’re safe here,” Kun murmured. “I want you to know that this isn’t about me learning your secrets, it’s about me listening to you. It’s about you unloading whatever it is that has you pacing instead of sleeping. Burdens are easier to carry when you’re not bearing the weight alone.”

Ten shuffled closer, placing a hand on Kun’s cheek so that he could place a weightless kiss against his lips. “Maybe in the morning,” he whispered. “Will you take me to the beach again, Kun?”

“Of course I will,” Kun said. placed a hand on Ten’s waist, thin but warm. “If you sleep tonight, we can go tomorrow.”

“Deal.” Ten kissed him again, just as softly, their lips barely grazing. He tasted like Kun’s toothpaste, achingly familiar. “Let’s take the boys this time. Let’s have fun.”

  
-

  
Johnny picked them up at eight sharp, the blown exhaust of his rusty old van echoing down the street as Jaehyun and Kun wrangled with the coolers full of food and beer, Yuta and Ten content to watch them struggle. The sun was already beating down onto the back of everyone’s necks, but Ten still refused to wear anything other than his long, baggy trousers. He seemed content to roast slowly, sunglasses slipping down as his nose as he let everyone else pack the van, texting Jungwoo to make sure they’d arrive at roughly the same time.

“How’d you guys manage to get away from the farm for a full day?” he asked absentmindedly.

Johnny looked up from the trunk. “A favour for a favour, man. I help Mingyu fix the roof of his mother’s old house, he babysits my lambs.”

“Oh.” Ten paused. “I want to babysit your lambs.”

Johnny patted him on the shoulder and then shoved him into the van. “Cool, I’ll pick you up tomorrow then. After five straight hours of picking sheep shit out of their wool we’ll see how fun you find it.”

Ten just smiled. “I like a challenge.”

Johnny smiled back. “And I like watching people fail.” He whistled, sharp and deafening. “Okay men, beachward ho. Get in the van or you’re staying here.”

Yuta clambered into passenger side, and Kun got comfortable in the seat next to Ten. 

Jaehyun hesitated, looking back to his house. “It’s a nice day,” he said. “I don’t… I mean, I feel like Chibi shouldn’t be stuck inside.”

Johnny rolled his eyes. “If you sit in the back with her you can bring her along too, Jae. Just don’t let her slobber on me while I’m driving or I’ll be doing wheelies.”

Yuta whooped. “House Cow joining the party! Get my girl out here and into this fucking van, Jaehyun!”

So Jaehyun ran back to his house to fetch his hundred and twenty pound lapdog while Johnny climbed into the driver’s seat and started the old engine running. “Are we ready, guys?”

Kun had woken that morning just before dawn, his arms wrapped around Ten’s waist, nose against the nape of his neck, listening to his quiet snoring. Ten woke up soon after, pulling Kun’s arms closer, tighter around him, mumbling something nonsensical before burrowing back down to sleep a little longer. Kun felt like he was ready for anything. 

Jaehyun hauled Chibi into the van behind Kun and Ten, then climbed in after her and slammed the door. Ten turned around so that he could give her kisses and scratch under her chin as they set off, Yuta already commandeering the radio. 

“Will Mingyu be okay all day?” Kun asked. After Ten’s nudge he joined in pampering Chibi, who lapped it all up and wagged her tail furiously, hitting Jaehyun in the stomach with the force of a barbed whip.

“He’ll be fine. He knows where my bread and cheese supply is, and he said he was gonna bring Wonwoo to help with the rams.”

Ten slid his eyes from Chibi to Kun. “Mingyu? Wonwoo?”

“Mingyu’s another farm owner in the area, Wonwoo’s his boyfriend.”

“Wow.” Ten raised his brows. “Small town for so many gays.”

Yuta smirked. “Can you blame them? They flock like moths to a big homosexual flame. I’m the flame.”

Kun kicked the back of Yuta’s seat. “Shut up, idiot. You’re not even gay.”

“I’m willing to try anything and everything, and I think that should count for something.”

“It means you have the discernment of a horny frat boy, which, actually… yeah. That sums you up pretty well. Desperate for orgasms and not particularly bothered about where they come from.”

Yuta sighed happily. “It’s a freeing way to live.”

“So,” Ten asked, brows back down, “Are there even more gay people here? How much of the population are we talking? Like, five percent? Six?”

“I’d say at least fifteen, maybe twenty. It’s still growing,” Kun said. “In the past twenty years a lot has changed, the past decade especially. Johnny’s parents are a big part of that.”

“In what way?”

Johnny glanced into the mirror and smiled at Ten. “Big advocates for equal rights, man. They’re loud too, didn’t want my cousin Seulgi feeling like she couldn’t trust her own family, you know? They were so loud that they ended up scaring a lot of the naysayers away, it sort of an accept our loved ones are lgbt or face our middle-aged wrath kind of deal. My mom made a lot of ladies at the bake sale cry.”

Ten made an appreciative noise in her throat. “Good for her.” He paused. “Wait, your cousin is a lesbian? It’s rare that both cousins are gay. That must be fun at Christmas.”

Johnny laughed. “What? Dude, I’m not gay.”

Ten laughed too, a nervous, squeaky sound. He sent Kun a questioning look, but all Kun could do was shrug. He knew exactly what Ten was thinking, had discussed it with Yuta a million times before, but it wasn’t his puzzle to solve.

Kun squeezed Ten’s knee reassuringly, sending him a quiet smile that Ten returned after only a moment of hesitation.

From behind, Jaehyun cleared his throat. “Yuta, can you put something else on? I’m not in the mood to listen to Meatloaf.”

The noise Yuta made was nothing short of outraged. He turned up the volume, turning in his seat to scowl at Jaehyun. “Deal with it.”

Kun could sense the ensuing argument in the air. It was stifled in the van between their shoulders, the nonsensical kind of shouting that came from five grown men giddy for sunshine and not quite ready to remember that for the rest of the time they had to behave like adults.

Ten was the first line of defence when Yuta launched himself into the back of the van to reach Jaehyun, but Ten was unprepared. He didn’t have Kun’s experience in dealing with Yuta’s feral form of conflict resolution, so as soon as he barred the way he folded beneath Yuta’s squirming weight.

 _“Kids!”_ Johnny shouted. “Dad is trying to drive here! Can you stop fucking around for five minutes?”

Kun grabbed Ten’s shoulders and braced against Yuta’s weight. He couldn’t help but laugh at the way Ten was straining , his face red, veins popping. Yuta lay above him, smiling blissfully as he made their lives difficult, and somewhere behind them Jaehyun was laughing, Chibi whining excitedly. 

It was messy, but Kun was still laughing.

So was Ten, and that’s what mattered.

  
-

  
It was no surprise that Johnny and Yuta teamed up to dunk Kun as soon as they got to the sea. What was surprising is that Ten waded in after them, clothes clinging to his slim form, in order to send water directly into Johnny’s face.

Yuta laughed, combing hair back from his eyes. “Your staunch defender has come to save you, Kun.”

Johnny wasn’t fighting back, which was unusual. He let himself get bossed around, dunked a couple of times before Ten dragged him further away to look at the shallow swimming fish. On the sand, Jaehyun was helping Jungwoo and Yukhei set up their towels while Chibi did her best to get in the way, but Kun’s eyes always ventured back to Ten.

“Dude,” Yuta said. “You’re so fucking fucked, man. Have you thought this through?”

“Not at all,” Kun murmured. Ten was picking up shells, washing them off delicately in the surf before holding them up to the sun to inspect their colours. He was squinting a little, the sunglasses resting on the top of his head forgotten, the tip of his nose and chin reddening from glaring heat. 

“You’re actually kind of worrying me,” Yuta said. “Forget Ten looking at you like Taeyong looked at Johnny, you’re looking at Ten like Johnny looked at Taeyong.”

“It’s different,” Kun said. The waves were at his waist, chilling his feet, the breeze rustling his hair. His skin felt salty, dry. He wondered if Ten would taste like the sea, if his skin felt like Kun’s, or if he remained untouched by his surroundings, still incense and silk. “I aware that I’m being stupid and falling in love with someone I shouldn’t.”

“Kun!” Ten called. “I picked you a shell!”

Yuta made a noise in his throat, half fond, half concerned. “Go get your shell, Prince Charming. Enjoy it while it lasts, okay? You deserve that at least.”

So Kun went to receive his shell, and as soon as he reached Ten’s side Johnny grabbed him from behind and dunked him back under the waves.

He surfaced to the sound of Ten’s laughter, uncontrolled and so joyful that Kun didn’t mind the taste of salt in his mouth or the grit in his eyes. He just had to keep Ten laughing. He had to heal that smile. 

  
-

  
Jungwoo, true to his beautiful form, had smuggled two bottles of red wine to the beach to share with Kun. He passed one over just after midday, eyes twinkling. “Yukhei promised to stay sober so he could drive us back,” he stage whispered. “Get wine drunk with me in the wonderful summer afternoon, won’t you Kun?”

Kun graciously accepted the bottle offered and knocked back a couple of mouthfuls. It was sweet, but not too sickly. Rich and spicy, definitely too expensive to accompany hotdogs and ice cream on the beach, but Kun wasn’t about to complain, so he drank some more. “This is why you’re my favourite,” he said.

Jungwoo smiled. “Not anymore, hm? I’ve never seen you so smitten, I didn’t even realise you liked men.”

“I always knew, I just… never found one I felt like I could…”

“Love?” Jungwoo gestured to where Yukhei was sprinting along the shore with Yuta, chasing Chibi in the wet sand. “Yukhei said I was the first man he’d ever had feelings for. It’s not so uncommon to find someone completely different to what you know and have them change your perspective. Ten is certainly powerful enough to influence perspective, I would say. He’s like an angel.”

Kun couldn’t help but laugh. “Believe me, he’s no angel.”

Jungwoo hummed. “You say that, why, because he’s difficult? Maybe I’m not talking about Christmas angels, guiding shepherds and wise men. Maybe I’m talking about the ancient kind of angels, the ones so bright that they’re terrifying. The ones that burn to look at. The ones that hurt.”

Sand clung to Ten’s wet trousers as Jaehyun span him around until he stumbled, a little drunk and a little dizzy, to where their towels were, falling with a breathless complaint as he was immediately sat on by Johnny.

Bright and terrifying? The analogy fit, but not quite. “I don’t think so,” Kun murmured, taking another, more measured sip of his wine. “He’s too mortal.”

Jungwoo’s eyes were kind and knowing. “Too mortal? You mean that he fits too well into your life? I think an angel would do so too, Kun. An angel doesn’t have to be perfect to be a blessing, and a blessing doesn’t have to be painless to still be a gift.”

Kun had always imagined his life going a particular way. Career, infatuation, love, marriage, children, ageing, death. A pretty, composed wife planting hydrangeas in the garden while Kun bounced a toddler against his hip, blowing raspberries onto its chubby cheek. He’d been content with the progress he’d made toward that goal, the house and the job and the piano waiting for graceful fingers to join his against the keys. 

It wasn’t jarring to realise it no longer appealed, because it feel like now, knowing how he felt, how he was falling, he realised he hadn’t ever been truly invested in that kind of future. He’d been plodding along, making the bare minimum to keep himself going without a clear goal, without a committed path. He was wondering, hoping that things would simply fall into place, that he’d meet a pretty woman as they reached for the same carton of milk, that she’d be unable to reach a book on the top shelf at the library, that Yangyang would make a friend at university with a studious, reserved older sister. 

He never thought he’d fall so quickly and recklessly into love with such a mess. It wasn’t even an insult – compared to Kun’s neat life, Ten was a mess. His hair was too long, his nails sharp, his words sharper. He had as many secrets as smiles, a reckless, self-destructive way of living, and seemed to swing from depression to mania to lethargy in a matter of seconds.

But he was beautiful, inside and out. He was quick witted, funny, endlessly kind. Gentle and soulful despite the hurting, despite the blatant pain. Kun was desperate to see the smile without the pain.

He took another sip of wine. “I don’t know what he is, Jungwoo. He’s just Ten.”

Jungwoo hummed. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe that’s all he needs to be.”

  
-

  
They weren’t dropped off at home until the late evening, sun burnt and drunk. Kun stumbled through the door first, kicking his shoes off as he padded through to the kitchen to pour them both water while Ten locked up behind him.

They went upstairs and got into pyjamas, brushed their teeth, and combed each other’s hair with clumsy hands. Kun couldn’t stop grinning, he knew he looked like an idiot, but Ten did too. The way they fell into bed together made self-consciousness take a backseat, because Ten’s warm lips were pressing against Kun’s, a kiss that was so slow it felt like they were drifting somewhere, drugging and hazy and only seconds from sleep, but so focused on the feel of damp, wine drunk lips, that they could have kept kissing for hours.

“Kun,” Ten whispered, soft against his mouth, “If I tell you a secret will you remember it in the morning?”

Kun tried to focus, but the day had been long, and he’d drunk so much. “I don’t think so,” he admitted. “I’m sorry, baby.”

Ten smiled. “Don’t be sorry, I’m glad.” He kissed Kun again, pressing closer, threading their legs together. “I won’t dance again,” he whispered. 

On the verge of dreams, Kun just kissed him again, harder, trying to force all of his drunken adoration into the press of their mouths. “You will,” he murmured. “Even if I have to be your legs. I’ll carry you.”

He felt more than saw Ten’s answering smile. “Sleep, Kun,” he whispered. “And don’t remember in the morning.”

  
-

  
Johnny came to pick Ten up bright and early for a day on the farm, and Ten was content to laugh as he left Kun in bed, moaning pathetically at the light sending needles into his eye sockets.

“Poor honey is hungover,” Ten said from the doorway, pouting patronisingly. “Maybe if you vomit a little, you’ll feel better.”

“Go away,” Kun groaned, rubbing his hands over his eyes. “Go speak loudly somewhere else.”

“I didn’t realise you were so old, Kun.”

“I’m _sensitive!”_

Ten laughed, but not unkindly. “Sleep some more,” he said. “I’ll be gone all day, so get some rest.”

“It’s you that’s meant to be resting,” Kun mumbled.

“But it’s you that can’t drink wine without aging forty years. Sleep, Kun, and when I’m back I’ll make us dinner.”

He didn’t remember agreeing, but before he realised it, he was asleep again. The next time he opened his eyes his head felt slightly less bruised, and outside of the window the sun had crossed a majority of the sky. He thought of Ten bottle feeding lambs with Johnny, stroking Baby as she curled around his ankles, laughing with Jaehyun and Mingyu as they ate lunch together. He went back to sleep and hoped that Ten was enjoying his day as much as Kun imagined he was.

  
-

  
The trouble with enjoying Ten was that the time stamp was too close. If this were a chapter in one of Kun’s novels, it would only be a handful of pages. Compared to the rest of his story, time with Ten felt infinitesimal.

He woke up midway through the afternoon with a bad taste in his mouth but a clear head. Ten was stood in the doorway again, this time with dirt streaked across his face and neck. He was smiling in that way he had at Jaehyun’s party, turning from Johnny to pass Kun a secret expression he could only share when the timing was perfect.

“I’ve made you some food,” Ten said. “Omelette okay?”

Suddenly, Kun wanted to cry. He wanted to ring his mother. He wanted to go back to sleep until Ten was gone again, until he reached the end of the chapter. He wanted to be alone again, because then at least his wait felt something closer to chosen. 

“Omelette is fine,” he said.

“Great. I made yours fluffy, just how you like them. Come down when you’re ready.”

He didn’t feel ready, but he got to his feet anyway. He wouldn’t leave Ten to eat alone.

  
-

  
The week passed by fast, the second and last week even faster. When Ten wasn’t helping Johnny on the farm, feeding animals and shovelling manure in a scarily cheerful manner, he was with Kun. They went to the beach; they went walking the hills. They visited the lake Kun frequented as a child and tossed smooth stones over the bright, still surface. Ten shoved Kun in. Kun dragged Ten in after him. 

It was still difficult. Sometimes Ten refused to eat, sometimes he wriggled out of Kun’s arms in the middle of the night and spent another handful of hours pacing around the house on unsteady legs. Sometimes they argued about it, sometimes Ten’s words turned cruel, and sometimes Kun felt too out of his depth, too exhausted to deal with it. He felt completely helpless at times. Like he’d handed Ten the needle and thread, watching excitedly as Ten began to stitch himself together only to get caught up in some unseen horror and rip out all the thread, exposing the wound again. It felt like they were on a seesaw, like Kun was desperately trying to get Ten into the air, but Ten refused to let Kun touch the ground for more than a second before he pushed back.

Each kiss felt like a battle and acquiescence, like they were agreeing to disagree, stand on that common ground together and keep caring even though they knew they shouldn’t. 

Ten tried a few times to take it further, grinding down onto Kun, moaning prettily, but Kun somehow maintained the self-restraint to gently push him back. Sex wasn’t what either of them needed, not like this, not with Ten hurt and ignoring his problems and Kun trying desperately not to fall increasingly in love. Ten was quick, always got the hint before Kun had to outright reject him, and after that would take a moment, move back slightly, eyes veiled, lips red and wet and so fucking tempting that Kun, for a brief and fleeting moment, would contemplate finally succumbing to Jaehyun’s pleading to join his morning yoga routine. Anything for discipline, anything for inner peace or something to stop the way his hands twitched to hold Ten, to cause more of those moans, to feel him shudder, to taste his skin.

Wine drunk became a sort of routine, too. Heady red wine, a crappy film, and then countless hours necking on the couch like teenagers became part of the week that Kun didn’t know he’d missed. Maybe he hadn’t missed it, maybe with Ten it was different, just like everything else. 

When Ten swung himself from beside Kun on the sofa onto his lap and reached for the button of Kun’s jeans, Kun grabbed his wrist and rubbed his thumb over the jutting bone. “Let me keep some self-preservation,” he said, a quiet, almost pathetically desperate beg. Just one part of himself he could keep untouched by Ten in some way.

Ten smiled, crooked and bitter. “Okay honey,” he said quietly, pressing a close-lipped kiss to the small mole below Kun’s eyebrow. “I understand. I won’t push it anymore, I’m sorry.”

Kun pulled Ten’s face down by his chin, trying to stare his desperation, his disunity into Ten’s eyes. “It’s not like that,” he said. “It’s not that I don’t want you.”

“It’s okay, Kun. You don’t have to make excuses.”

 _“Ten.”_ It came out harsher than intended. “How the hell could you think I don’t want you?”

Ten’s bitter smile grew and warped. “Who would?” he asked. Kun wanted to think it was the wine speaking, but he knew it wasn’t. Ten wasn’t wearing any kind of mask when he said, “No one keeps damaged goods; they get thrown in the trash with everything else that’s broken.”

“You’re not damaged goods,” Kun forced out. Was that really what Ten saw when he looked at himself? Something not worth anything? To go from how he performed on stage, confident and unstoppable, to this… ghost. A man who would stare into the mirror, unable to see his reflection. “Ten, you’re not trash, you’re not broken, you’re a person that was hurt and is recovering. You’re worth something, you’re worth everything.”

“What about you?” Ten asked. He stroked a hand through Kun’s hair, dragged his thumb across Kun’s cheekbone. “Handsome, educated Qian Kun, simple in needs, earnest at heart. Don’t you deserve more than being left with whatever I don’t take?”

“You’re not taking,” Kun said. He met Ten’s eyes. “Needing help is different from being selfish, and as annoying, as downright infuriating as you can be, Ten, you’re far from selfish. You’re hurt and you feel stuck, but taking my hand and letting me lift you out of that hole isn’t dragging me down with you. It’s letting me help with the weight, and I’m strong enough for that.”

“Are you?” Ten leant down and kissed Kun again, deep and drugging, sharp nose pressing into Kun’s cheek as Ten threaded both hands into Kun’s hair. “Do you want to hear about it, Kun? Do you really want to know?”

“I want to help you,” he whispered against Ten’s lips, repeating the moment they’d shared in Kun’s bed over a week ago. It felt longer than that, but shorter too. The size of Ten’s chapter was fluctuating, expanding and constricting with every breath.

Ten smiled against his lips. “One of the sutures became infected,” he whispered back, barely audible. “It didn’t reach the bone, but it got to some of the muscle and it weakened my calf. I was told I was lucky, that if it had gone deeper, if it had reached the bone, I would have had to have the leg amputated. As it was, the infection was controlled and I didn’t lose the leg, but I lost everything else. I won’t dance again, not even with years of rehabilitation. My company terminated my contract under the guise of health and safety restrictions, but every performer knows the truth behind the concern.”

It felt like the word was shifting sideways. “What do you mean?” Kun asked, reeling. His hands tightened on Ten’s waist, as if his grip could hold Ten together, stop him from shattering.

“There’s a reason Netflix cancels its shows after two or three seasons,” Ten said, still smiling. There was a shiny film over his eyes, tears close to the surface but held back by sheer force of will. “It’s more cost effective to train new talent and attract new fans than to just sate the ones already waiting. Out with the old and in with the new.”

It hit Kun then, how much Ten had been hurting alone without saying a word. How many times had someone encouraged him to get better, told him to stop holding himself back, told him that if he just kept going, he would dance again? How many times had someone told him that if he tried hard enough, he would get his life back? How long had he kept his secret festering, the knowledge that his career was gone, that the one thing that had been driving him forward had been snatched away? 

_After half a year of watching him improve, it was like his leg was broken all over again, except this time the wound wasn’t something I could see._

“Doyoung doesn’t know,” Kun realised. “You haven’t told him. You haven’t told _anyone.”_

“Who the fuck would want to hear me complain about something so petty?” Ten spat. “People have it so much worse, people lose limbs and loved ones and their homes, and they don’t fucking rot like I am, I’m already enough of a burden on my-“

 _“Ten.”_ Kun stopped him. “Baby, you’re allowed to be sad. You’re allowed to mourn what you’ve lost. You’re allowed to cry.”

His face scrunched up, nose wrinkling in the tell-tale way of emotions breaching his barriers. “I can’t,” he choked. “What if I never stop?”

But ignoring pain didn’t stop it, it just made it harder to do anything else. If all of your effort went on pushing something away, you were left exhausted and too weak to do anything else. Looking at Ten wasn’t like looking at an angel, a star – it was like looking at a black hole. Something destructive, something eating itself alive, something vast and distant and agonising. “Baby,” Kun said, moving one hand to cup Ten’s face, “If you want to heal you have to acknowledge what’s happened. You have to look at the wound. You have to let yourself deal with it before you can move on, or you’ll never let it go, you’ll just keep carrying it with you.”

“What the hell does it matter, Kun? Who gives a shit anymore, huh? I’m fucking done. I’m nothing now. I don’t know who I _am_ anymore,” Ten sobbed, tears spilling over.

_You have to make sure he knows that what he is without the dancing is still something worth coveting._

Kun pulled him close and held him. Ten’s tears leaked down Kun’s neck as he cried, loud and unconcealed, slim shoulders shaking. 

“You’re still Ten,” Kun murmured, eyes stinging. “You’re still you. Doyoung, Taeyong – everyone loves you for who you are, not what you can do. You’re not selfish for being sad, for struggling, for giving yourself a break. You’re human, and if you need to pause, we’re not going to leave you behind. We’ll wait for you.”

Kun was – helpless. He really was this time. Ten had spent so long climbing that tree, determined not to acknowledge that he wasn’t dripping blood, he was haemorrhaging, ignoring the signs, so determined not to stop, so determined not to get left on the ground. 

“I’m sorry,” Ten choked out. “Kun I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Kun hushed, wiping the tears as they fell. There really wasn’t anything else he could say, there was nothing he could do other than hold Ten close and make sure he knew that even as he finally let himself fall, he wasn’t alone. Kun was waiting below the tree, ready to catch him.

  
-

  
Ten didn’t get out of bed the following day, and Kun allowed it, albeit reluctantly. He knew Ten needed time to rest, time to let himself remain still. Kun brought him toast and water at odd intervals, but the food was never touched, and Ten never looked at him.

With nothing else to do, Kun found himself getting angrier and angrier. The way Ten had been treated was abhorrent. It was inhuman. Not only had his management left him alone in a foreign hospital for days, but then when he was at his weakest they’d dumped him, cutting the strings holding him up. The logic part of his brain was already striding ahead, working out alternates for a life that wasn’t his to dictate – Ten could choreograph. He could go through extensive physical therapy and maybe sign with a different management company in a couple of years. He could take a break, find a new passion, train others, sell his art – but none of this was an immediate solution. It wasn’t going to help Ten in this moment, it was for later, for once he’d grieved.

Kun knew he needed to tell Doyoung, but he also knew that the fallout would be immense. Not for him, but for Ten – the emotional strain would be too much. He was at his weakest, and holding Doyoung back from a fight would be impossible. 

With Ten resting upstairs, Kun knew he really had only one option. He sat on his porch, honey tea at his feet, and rang Taeil.

He recapped everything sparingly, knowing most of it wasn’t his story to tell, but that Taeil would know what to do. He always knew what to do, in his quiet, steady way. He’d know how to tell Doyoung without causing more pain. He’d know how to do what Kun couldn’t.

After he finished speaking, there was nothing but silence for a handful of extended moments.

“Thank you for telling me,” Taeil said eventually. “That explains a lot of Ten’s behaviour. It doesn’t excuse it, but it explains it. He’s not someone used to being vulnerable, and there’s nothing he hates more than pity. I’ll do my best to tell the others in a way that lessens the impact if you okay it with Ten first. Just… be gentle with him and let me know what he says.”

“I will.”

“I know you will,” Taeil said simply. “It’s the reason I asked you to take him in the first place. You don’t always know how to deal with things, Kun, but you always try. You’re much stronger than you give yourself credit for. Ten is lucky to be with you while he deals with this.”

“Thank you,” Kun replied, eyes stinging again. “I’ll get back to him now.”

“Okay. And Kun?”

“Yes?”

“You’re not the first to fall so quickly for him, but you’re the only one that’s been worthy of reciprocation.”

  
-

  
Ten was awake but mute when Kun ventured back into his bedroom. He looked smaller than ever, tucked away between the pillows with his hair splayed across his face. The food beside the bed remained untouched, but Ten’s hand was outstretched beside him, like he’d been reaching for something.

Kun hesitated in the doorway. “Can I sit with you a while, baby? It’s okay if we don’t talk.”

Ten nodded.

Kun sat on the edge of the bed. He didn’t want to, he wanted to lie next to Ten and gather him to his chest, holding him so tight that they’d merge. “I’ve spoken to Taeil,” he said quietly. “I felt that I had to.”

Ten nodded again. “It’s not your fault,” he said, barely audible. “You’re just doing your best. You always are.”

It was Kun’s turn to nod. “Doyoung is picking you up in a couple of days, and Taeil wanted me to ask if you’d rather he told Doyoung everything to save you having to do it. He’s happy to catch everyone up if you’re okay with it.”

“Fine,” Ten said. He looked away, towards the window. “You think I should?”

“I think you should do whatever you’re most comfortable with.”

Finally, a faint smile. “Don’t bullshit, Kun. Tell me what you think would be the right thing to do.”

It stung, but Kun didn’t take it personally. “I think that Doyoung and your other friends deserve to know, but more than that, I think you deserve to have your friends know what’s happened so that they can support you in the way you need, which so far you haven’t allowed.”

“Tell them then.”

Permission granted, Kun sent Taeil a quick text and pocketed his phone, focusing back on the way Ten had curled further into the sheets, as if he already regretted his decision. “Ten?”

“I don’t want pity,” Ten murmured. “I’d rather they hate me; I’d rather be forgotten.”

“Compassion and care doesn’t equate to pity,” Kun said, resting his hand against Ten’s. His pretty, slim fingers curled between Kun’s, as if the open palm had been waiting for Kun’s hand to find it. “I don’t pity you, but I care. Even when you hide behind your masks, it doesn’t push those that love you away, it just makes them worry. You’re important to people even when you’re at your worst, Ten.”

“What if I stay at my worst?”

Kun swallowed, hand tightening against Ten’s. He wanted to protect this proud, wonderous man. “When you feel like you’re drowning, you forget that the water does have a surface. It takes a lot of inner strength to remember that if you keep kicking, you’ll eventually reach air. My Grandmother was a therapist before she retired, and she was one of those ladies that had a crochet pillow with a lifestyle quote for every occasion. Her favourite pillow was green, a bright, hideous green, and covered in woollen leaves. My Grandfather made it for her on their thirtieth anniversary, and it said ‘Sometimes you have to trim away the withered parts weighing you down. It’s hard because you don’t want to lose yourself, but like an oak without its leaves, you will grow back.’”

Ten sniffed. He blinked rapidly, quelling the tears before they fell. “Your Grandmother sounds like someone I’d argue with.”

Kun felt himself smile a little. “Baby, I get the impression you argue with everyone just for the fun of it.”

“Only when I’m tired or hungry.”

“So… most of the time?”

Ten nodded again. He lifted his gaze to Kun. “You want me to see a therapist, don’t you?”

“I think it would be good for you if you did. Things will get better, but what’s important right now is getting you to realise that.”

Ten squeezed Kun’s hand. “Gentle, weary Kun. You’ve done too much for me.”

Kun squeezed back. “Another of her pillows was pink, pretty and covered in hearts. It had a quote from Norman B. Rice, one that read ‘Dare to reach out your hand into the darkness, to pull another hand into the light.’ Ten, you’ve been in the dark too long. It’s no trouble to me to remind you that you belong in the light.”

That’s where he’d been; alone in the dark. His eyes had been shut, ignoring it, walking onwards despite of it, terrified to open his eyes and see the nothing. Now he was looking, and it was just as scary as he had imagined. 

“Do you want me to hold you?”

Ten squeezed his eyes shut. “Please.”

So Kun lay down beside him and finally allowed himself to gather Ten to his chest, holding him tightly, breathing in his incense smell. They fit together perfectly, Ten’s cheek resting snug against the curve where Kun’s neck met his shoulder. 

It must have been minutes that they lay there, but it felt longer. It felt beautifully endless in the way that those rare, peaceful moments do, until Kun’s phone began vibrating in his pocket with a startling frequency that Ten complained at, his rest disturbed.

Kun wrangled one arm out of Ten’s hold, fishing for his phone to check the notifications.

He had a message from Johnny that just read: _Seven healthy kittens from Baby! You have first dibs!_

The others were from Doyoung, longer and in rapid succession. 

They read:

_I panicked and walked out of my job._   
_I’m ????? still panicking._   
_I’m picking up Taeyong and then we’re coming to see Ten. Tell him we’re not mad, we’re not upset. We just want to be with him._   
_Also please tell him I finally told my boss to put his lips directly on my asshole and suck._

“Oh dear,” Kun said quietly.

Ten tensed. “What?”

“Doyoung… quit his job. I think. He’s on his way.”

“Oh fuck.”

“He said he’s not mad or upset or anything.” Kun blinked down at his phone, rereading the message. “He said to tell you that he told his boss to suck his asshole.”

It startled a laugh out of Ten. “Fuck. I guess there really is no going back now.”

“No, there isn’t,” Kun murmured. There was dread in Ten’s eyes past the thin veil of humour, and he was so pale that he almost matched the linen sheets. “Baby, you’re not alone. None of us would ever leave you alone in the dark. We’re all reaching out.”

“I know,” Ten whispered. “But I have to reach out too, right?”

“You gave me your hand,” Kun said, squeezing again. “You’ve done the hard part. Now we do our part and lift you up.”


	7. Chapter 7

To say Doyoung made an entrance would be an understatement. 

Kun had just gotten Ten settled on the couch with a mug of green tea when they heard the sound of tires crunching on the gravel of the driveway. Seconds later Doyoung burst through the door, already crying.

“You’re so fucking stupid, Ten!” he wailed. “I lied about not being angry, I’m furious! You’re an idiot! Like I could ever pity the man who put siracha in my underwear!”

Kun looked to Ten. “You put siracha in his underwear?”

Ten smiled shakily. “He stained my favourite jacket.”

Doyoung seemed to fall forward, all of the tension holding up his body leaving in one rush, and then he was on top of Ten, still sobbing. Ten looked at Kun, lost, but Kun just tried to offer an encouraging expression and shoo him along.

Cringing, Ten patted Doyoung’s shoulder. “You okay?”

“I’m fine, it’s _you_ that’s missing two thirds of a functioning brain.” Doyoung lifted one hand and clumsily stroked Ten’s hair. “I love you, stupid. You ass. You fucking loser. I hate you.”

Ten kept patting. His distaste had softened into something closer to fond exasperation. “I love you too. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

“Don’t be sorry. _I’m_ sorry. I should have been there for you the whole way.”

“I’ll step outside for a couple of minutes,” Kun said, despite the way Ten shook his head very slowly, eyes pleading. Kun couldn’t help but smile at the expression; it wasn’t one of genuine fear, but more a cringe of discomfort, the knowledge that some difficult but necessary discussions were to come. 

“You don’t have to leave,” Ten said, verging on desperate. 

Doyoung sniffed. “Please leave. This is humiliating as it is, I really don’t want an audience. I promise I’ll be good.”

“Scream if you need me,” Kun said.

Ten nodded, defeated. He patted Doyoung’s shoulder again. “Please get off me, lardass.”

“You’re such a bitch,” Doyoung said, rising to place a sloppy kiss on Ten’s forehead. “Fuck you. I’ve missed your sass and your smile.”

Kun figured it was time to leave them to it. After all, they’d been friends for years, and this had been going on for months. There was a lot to discuss, and most of it Kun didn’t have any right to hear, even if they were dripping tears and snot onto the homely fabric of his beloved couch.

Outside, the sun was still high, despite how long the day had already felt. When he checked his watch, he saw that it wasn’t even six.

He also saw that someone was leaning against Doyoung’s car, chewing his nails frantically as he stared at Kun with impossibly large, haunted eyes. 

“Oh,” Kun found himself saying. “Taeyong.”

“Hi Kun,” Taeyong said, still chewing at his nails. There was blood smeared against his lip, a sign he was so far into fear that he couldn’t feel the damage he was doing to his fingers.

He was just as skinny as Ten, just as alarmingly waifish. His wrists looked insubstantial, his collarbones standing in stark relief against the cream colour of his skin. His dark eyes swallowed his face, half hidden behind the fall of his dark hair and still somehow the only thing truly visible. If Ten had looked vulnerable when he’d first arrived, Taeyong looked critically exposed. He was so scared that he couldn’t mask his fear with bite like Ten, he just stood and trembled slightly, chewing at the skin around his nails as blood pooled in the seam of his lips. 

Kun tried to speak, but found himself lacking any of the right words. “You look…” he couldn’t say well. Taeyong didn’t look well. He looked almost as bad as Ten in a completely different way. If Ten had been bludgeoned by fate, Taeyong looked hollowed by it. “It’s… nice to see you.”

“You don’t have to lie,” Taeyong said, voice as quiet, as sweet as Kun remembered. “Would it be better if I waited in the car? I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“You’re not making me uncomfortable, Taeyong, I’m just shocked.”

“I thought Doyoung told you he was bringing me?”

He had, but in the moment Kun hadn’t been focused on that. He’d been focused on the repercussions for Ten, how to make him as okay with the invasion as he possibly could be. Even now, he was thinking about Ten, somewhere in the back of his mind in a niche dug out especially for the task. If he didn’t trust Doyoung like he did, he wouldn’t ever leave Ten alone again. “He told me you were coming, but I’ll be honest, I was too busy with other things to think it over properly.”

Taeyong flinched. “I knew it was a bad idea,” he murmured. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to force myself into your home, I just wanted to see Ten.”

Kun realised a few things in that moment, but what hit the hardest, like lightning, were twin bolts. One being the extent Taeyong loved Ten; the aching in his voice, the shaking of his hands, the desperation to see him with his own eyes. How long had it been since Ten had permitted himself to be seen by the people that cared the most?

The second strike hurt Kun even more than the first. He looked at Taeyong, the sweet, altruistic boy he’d grown up with, and saw a man that thought he was hated. 

“Taeyong…” he trailed off. “You’re not unwelcome in my home. You never have been, and you never will be.”

“It’s okay, Kun, I understand,” Taeyong said. He finally moved his hand from his mouth, and before he tucked it into the pocket of his baggy luminescent jacket, Kun saw how mangled the skin of his fingers were. “I haven’t fostered a welcoming homecoming; you don’t have to force yourself to be polite for my sake. I certainly don’t deserve it.”

Kun wanted to argue, wanted to fold Taeyong into the hug that he so obviously needed, but this wasn’t the time. This wasn’t about a long history of absence, this was about Ten needing his friends, needing the opportunity to heal. Taeyong needed it too, maybe just as much. Kun sighed and rubbed his face. “You can go inside, Taeyong. You’re welcome, like I said. Ten will be happy to see you, and I want you to know what despite what you seem to think, I don’t bare you ill feelings. I don’t hate you. I’m glad you came home, no matter the reason. I’m glad to see you.”

Taeyong was silent for a moment, eyes searching Kun for any kind of falsehood. When he realised Kun meant what he said, he offered up a tiny, square smile. It was the expression of a child half expecting a reward, half convinced they’d receive a punishment instead. “Thank you, Kun.”

“You’re welcome,” Kun said. He took a seat on his porch and tapped on the door. “Head on in. I’m sure there are things that the three of you want to talk about.”

Taeyong nodded, thanked Kun again, and then hurried past and into the house. 

Kun heard Ten yell something incomprehensible, and then there was the dull thud of a body hitting the floor. Then, laughter. Wet laughter, yes, but laughter nonetheless. Kun found himself smiling, trying to give the three privacy but enjoying being nosy just as much. The way Ten had jumped on Taeyong, it seemed like the reunion was long overdue, and Kun didn’t want to intrude.

But he also didn’t want to sit on his porch with nothing to do for an indefinite amount of time, worrying absentmindedly, so he hopped the fence and let himself into Jaehyun’s unlocked house. 

He found Jaehyun sat on the countertop of his small kitchen, spoon of cereal halfway to his lips, the bowl just beneath his chin. Chibi was sat beneath his dangling feet. She looked up at Kun’s entrance but didn’t bother to stand. She was used to his intrusions. 

Jaehyun squinted. “Uh. Hey?”

“Do you ever feel like you’re intruding in your own life? Like, you’re where you should be, but at the same time you’re not?”

Jaehyun slowly lifted the spoon to his lips and munched his cereal while he stared at Kun and his squint deepened into a frown. “Did you walk in on Yuta and his fuck buddies again?”

“Thankfully, no.”

“Okay, so what the hell is going on?”

Kun shrugged. “Can I have some cereal?”

“Help yourself. Its organic honey wheat and fibre nuts.”

“I don’t know what you just said.” Kun pulled out a bowl and poured himself some of the vaguely beige chunks, grumbling about Jaehyun’s almond milk before reluctantly smothering the cardboard nugget lookalikes. “Upon closer inspection, this looks horrible.”

“It’s good for cholesterol.”

“I eat healthy enough without soggy clay.” He hesitantly tried a spoonful, but truthfully, it didn’t taste half as bad as it looked. The milk still made him a little sad, but it was filling a hole. It had been a while since he’d eaten, but he’d only realised when he’d seen Jaehyun. The rest of the day had been focused on trying to get Ten to eat. “I’m sorry for insulting your cereal,” he mumbled between mouthfuls. “I’m in a weird mood. You’re a very gracious host and your breakfast food is sublime.”

“What’s up? You’re usually too polite to insult Johnny’s cooking, so the fact that you’d get grouchy over cereal tells me something is seriously out of whack.”

_Johnny._

“Oh god,” Kun groaned, putting his bowl down. “What the hell am I going to tell Johnny?”

Taeyong.

Taeyong was in his _house._

Taeyong was hurting and scared and in Kun’s house and Johnny was literally a five minute sprint down the street.

“Do I need to call an ambulance? Are you having some kind of… moment?”

“Taeyong is in my house!”

Jaehyun’s eyes widened. “Taeyong as in the Lee Taeyong that left you at eighteen and never came back and sometimes Johnny still cries in his sleep about it but won’t admit it was love? That Taeyong?”

Kun nodded miserably. He shovelled more cereal into his mouth. “This almond milk is horrible, Jaehyun.”

“Stop eating your feelings and tell me what’s going on. Why is Taeyong in your house?”

“Doyoung brought him to see Ten.”

“Oh.” Jaehyun’s demeanour changed immediately. “Doyoung is back?”

“Put your dick away and focus on my dilemma!”

“What do you want me to do? I don’t even know Taeyong, I just know about him. Should I ring Yuta?”

“Yuta too,” Kun mumbled pathetically. “Oh god. Both of them, there’s so much – _Uhhhhhhhhhh._ I don’t want to deal with this, Jaehyun.”

“Seems like you don’t have a choice.”

“Go away.”

“You’re in _my_ kitchen eating _my_ cereal.”

“I know, I’m sorry.” Kun groaned again. “What the hell do I do, Jaehyun?”

“Do you want me to be honest?”

“Of course I do.”

“Okay. I’m guessing Taeyong looks a little lost, a little hopeless – that’s usually what melts you. If he looked arrogant, or happy, or anything else, you wouldn’t even be considering if you should tell Johnny and Yuta, you would have already told them. They’re the friends that have stayed with you for years and they’re where your loyalty lies, you’re just worried about making things worse for Taeyong because he’s suffering, despite the fact that he’s the one that’s put himself in this position.”

Kun blinked. “Wow.”

Jaehyun finished off his cereal and put his bowl in the sink beside him. “You asked, I delivered.”

“You really did.” And he was right. Jaehyun was completely right. Johnny… whatever reasons Taeyong had for leaving, Johnny was the one that had sat with Kun and let him cry on the night that his parents moved back to China. Johnny was the one that turned up with champagne and an (inexplainable) roasted ham when Kun signed his first publishing deal. Johnny was the one that had promised Kun a kitten like he was giving away his firstborn for a noble cause. Johnny was the one that had stayed. “Jaehyun, you’re right.”

“I know. Ring Johnny and I’ll ring Yuta.”

“Tell him… not to do anything wild.” Kun hesitated over unlocking his phone. “Taeyong is here for Ten, not to start a fight. This is about Ten’s recovery, not our town’s history, okay? Just make sure you pass that along; I don’t want any arguments when Ten is trying so hard to better himself.”

“Sure.” Jaehyun cocked his head. “Has he finally been honest with you?”

“Yeah,” Kun said softly. 

“And you’re still falling for him?”

He smiled crookedly. “I know it’s not going to go anywhere; you can save the patronising lecture, Jae.”

“Hey, I’d never lecture someone on unlikely conquests. I’m still trying with Doyoung even though he refused to give me his number.”

“Oh. Uh, good luck I guess.”

Jaehyun saluted. “You too. Go ring Johnny.”

So Kun found himself wandering into Jaehyun’s living room, fingers once again hovering over his phone screen. Much to his dismay, Johnny picked up on the second ring, already midway through a sentence as he put his phone to his ear.

“- so one of them looks like a skunk so that’s obviously what she’s gonna be called, and then another has really distinctive black markings near her eye so I’m calling her Chickadee, but the others are totally up to you man, I just figured that as the honorary midwife I could give them sick ass names before some Karen comes along and calls one of them Paws or some shit. Right?”

Right. The kittens.

“Johnny, where are you right now?”

“Huh? Oh, I’m in the barn with Baby. She’s nursing the little beans so well, I’m so proud! A first-time mother and she’s taken to it like a pro.”

Kun wanted to cry. “Johnny, I need to tell you some stuff, okay?”

“Sure man, go right ahead.”

“Ten is… unwell. He’ll get better, but right now, as I’m sure you’d figured out, he’s in a bad place. It came to a head today, and some stuff happened with Doyoung – so now he’s come back, just to check on Ten.”

“Okay.” Johnny paused. “Still pissed he hasn’t visited me, but whatever. I’ll just throw manure at him next time he does.”

“He’s brought Taeyong.”

A pause.

“Okay.”

Kun pressed his lips together. “I’m sorry Johnny, I didn’t know what to do. I was just focused on getting Ten better; when Doyoung said he’d bring Taeyong I didn’t even realise the implications.”

“It’s not your fault Kun, don’t apologise.” Johnny sighed, deep and long. “Is Taeyong well?”

 _He looks just as defeated as Ten._ “Not really. He doesn’t look great.”

“Would it be more helpful for Ten if I keep away?”

And there he went, wanting to cry again. Gentle giant Johnny with the heart of burnished gold, making everyone else look like utter garbage in comparison. “Johnny…”

“It’s okay, Kun. I have to look after Baby and her babies anyway. Is Doyoung going to be taking Ten home today?”

Kun hadn’t thought of that. He’d been working on the basis that Ten would stay another couple of days, but if Doyoung had made the trip, it would be impractical to waste the fuel and the time, and Doyoung was nothing if not practical. Ten was probably going to be gone by the end of the day.

It was a grievous thought to linger on, so Kun didn’t let himself. “I don’t know, why?”

“Just wondering. I want to say goodbye is all, but if he’s leaving today I don’t want him to feel guilty about missing me or anything. If he goes today just – I don’t know, tell him that we’ll organise a gathering and facetime him in a few days or something, okay?”

“Okay.” Kun forced himself to breathe. “The world doesn’t deserve you, Johnny.”

“I know. It doesn’t deserve you either.” Johnny laughed, but there was a pitiful amount of humour in it. “Come over when Ten is gone. I know how it feels to be left behind, and you won’t want to be on your own.”

  
-

  
He leaves Jaehyun’s house feeling worse than when he’d entered, and even the sight of Ten’s bright smile doesn’t fix the way it feels like his heart is dripping down his chest in rivulets. 

“Hi,” Ten said, grabbing Kun’s hand and pulling him into the house. Somewhere else Doyoung and Taeyong were talking quietly, but Ten didn’t seem to care about that. He dragged Kun up the stairs and into his bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bed and gesturing for Kun to do the same.

He ended up perched awkwardly, uncertain of what exactly Ten wanted. “Hey.”

“They’re not mad at me.”

Kun’s first reaction was to scoff, to say, _Of course they’re not mad!_ But Ten’s expression was eager and earnest and open, and that was so fucking rare that it hurt to look at even more than the masks. “That’s great,” Kun found himself saying. His voice came out thick, but he managed to keep an even tone. “Ten, I’m so pleased for you.”

Ten’s smile widened, his eyes squeezing closed. “Thanks, Kun. I think I will be too, eventually. I know that things aren’t suddenly going to be perfect, but you were right about sharing. I didn’t realise how much it was crushing me.”

Kun forced himself to smile back. “Good.”

“Yeah. I’m going to try hard to get help and to make sure that I improve myself.”

That wasn’t the entirety, and they both knew it. Healing was an uphill battle, and while Ten felt optimistic now, there were days ahead in which he’d feel worse than before. What was important was that now he knew that even if things did get bad again, he could deal with it. The storm would pass.

What broke Kun’s heart was the realisation that he wouldn’t get to see Ten’s cloudless sky. Whether Ten realised it or not, this moment perched on the end of Kun’s bed, with the sun just beginning to set, was their goodbye.

It felt too soon, but not quick enough. It was going to hurt, and Kun wanted it to be over. He wanted Ten to be hours away before he realised he wouldn’t be coming back. Kun didn’t want to know what kind of expression he would wear when he realised he wouldn’t have a need to see Kun again. 

In a selfish, vindictive way, Kun wanted it to hurt Ten. He wanted to know he meant something, but that was the part of himself he detested, the part of himself he tried so hard to repress. More than anything, he wanted Ten to leave as happy as he looked now, and Kun knew that if he begun to falter, Ten would too.

So he forced another smile, this one wider, brighter. “I’m so proud of you, Ten.”

Downstairs, Doyoung said something louder, and outside, a door closed. It was the excuse Kun needed to stand up before Ten could get more emotional, the excuse he needed to smile again, this time apologetic, and say, “I’ll just check on them.”

Ten nodded, eyes wide. He stayed sat on the bed, waiting. 

Kun didn’t look back as he left, because he knew his face would say everything Ten didn’t need to hear. This was his time to heal, and he didn’t need the extra weight of Kun’s emotional baggage weighing him down when he’d only just shrugged his silence from his thin shoulders.

Doyoung was at the bottom of the stairs, laughing at something Taeyong was grumbling as he fiddled around in the trunk of the car. He glanced at Kun, and then his eyes stuck. His smile faded. “What’s wrong?”

Kun clenched his hands and prayed his voice wouldn’t waver. “Let me be selfish just this once, Doyoung. Tell him that he needs to go home with you now.”

Annoyingly perceptive Kim Doyoung, the boy with the unfailing ability to strip a man to his core in seconds. He looked at Kun and saw everything he was trying to hide. “I told him not to hurt you, but I should have known better. He breaks hearts by breathing,” he said quietly. “Okay, Kun. I’ll sort it out.”

Kun nodded, not trusting his voice, and went into the kitchen to compose himself. He drank a glass of water, then hunched over the sink, knuckles white from the strength of his grip as he listened to Doyoung boss Ten around, forcing him to pack up his clothes with the excuse of saving mileage on his shitty car, unwilling to make another trip to come back for Ten another day. It was just convincing enough to sound sincere, but maybe because Kun knew the truth, it rang a little hollow.

Ten was ushered out of the house with a startling speed, Doyoung holding true to his word as he shoved all of the bags into the trunk and nagged until Taeyong had moved into one of the back seats so that Ten could ride shotgun.

All the while Ten wandered behind, wide eyed and confused. It felt like exploitation – forcing a goodbye when he was at his most vulnerable, in the adrenaline filled moment after a hard-fought battle – but it was the best time. If he didn’t quite register what was happening, it would lessen the hurt of the goodbye, and really, beyond himself, that’s all Kun really wanted. To lessen Ten’s pain.

Taeyong waved hesitantly to Kun, Doyoung pausing briefly to give him a stiff, awkward hug.

Then there was just Ten on the porch, staring at Kun with something close to realisation, but closer to denial. “I guess this is goodbye for now,” Ten said. “I didn’t expect it to happen so quickly. I thought… never mind. I guess it doesn’t matter.”

Kun forced out a laugh. “There’s only so much healing I can help with, after all!”

“You’ve done so much for me, Kun. I hate being genuine, you know that by now, but I can’t begin to thank you enough. For listening, for advising when I needed it, but mostly for letting me figure things out in my own way. I hope your grandmother is proud of you. You’d make a great therapist if you ever decide to give up the novels.”

“You’re welcome, Ten. It was a difficult kind of joy to have you here.”

Ten nodded slowly. “I’ll call you soon?”

“Sure,” Kun said. It was a formality and he knew it. Ten cared now, sure, but once he was out of the town he would forget. That’s what happened. He’d heal, grow, blossom into a new, happier version of himself, and leave the ghost of his suffering here with Kun. That was how life went, whether people realised it or not. They were always leaving ghosts.

Even with Ten’s feet firmly on the ground, his blood was still drying on the trunk of the tree.

Doyoung beeped his horn and stuck his head out of the window. “Any day now, Ten!”

Ten glanced back at the car, hesitating for a moment before turning back to Kun and leaning up to press a lingering, soft kiss against his lips. “I’ll call you. I mean it.”

“Okay,” Kun said. He tucked his hands into his pants to stop himself from reaching out. “Goodbye, Ten.”

“Bye, Kun.”

He waved as the car pulled away, and Ten waved back, nose pressed against the window. Kun kind of held it together until he went back into the house and found it silent, darkening with the encroaching evening skies. He grabbed his keys and drove to Johnny’s as quickly as he could, parking the car haphazardly across Johnny’s driveway. He got out and jogged down the track towards the fields and barns, knowing Johnny would be tucked away in the straw with blankets and Baby, knowing he was probably preparing to spend the entire night there amongst the animals.

And he was. He looked up when Kun entered the barn, smiling sadly. He waved him over, and Kun took a seat on the blanket next to him, looking down at where Baby was nursing her kittens. Well – nursing six of them. One of the tiny kittens wasn’t anywhere near its siblings, it was sat on Baby’s hind leg, thrashing wildly.

Johnny followed Kun’s gaze and smiled at the kitten. “That’s Chickadee. She’s a wild one, I’d say. Not even a day old and already partying hard.”

“Has she fed?”

“Yeah, she got in there first. She’s the boss of the litter, I’d say. Not the eldest, but definitely the spunkiest.” Johnny pointed to another kitten, this one fully black and nursing quietly. “This one was the firstborn. He’s my favourite, he’s so chill. I’m thinking of calling him Dave.” He looked up, saw Kun still staring mutely at Chickadee. “She’s been fed man, she’s good. You want to hold her?”

Kun nodded, ignoring the way he could feel tears start to slip down his cheeks. “Yes please.”

Johnny leant over, pausing to scratch Baby under her chin before picking up Chickadee, who was dwarfed by Johnny’s hand. She was the smallest kitten Kun had ever seen, screaming quietly even as her face scrunched up and she wiggled. It was always the small ones that had the most energy, though.

He cusped his hands together in his lap and Johnny placed her down gently. She was soft, so soft and warm and tiny. Her eyes wouldn’t open for days yet, maybe weeks, but Kun already knew that this was the kitten he wanted. He already loved her.

“Bro,” Johnny said quietly. “Do you want to talk about it?”

He couldn’t stop crying. “No,” he said. “I really don’t.”

Johnny squeezed his shoulder. “Do what you have to, okay? It’s your turn to be vulnerable. I’m here.”

He remembered when Taeyong first left, the numb ringing in everyone’s ears as they visited his house and found his parents confused as to why he hadn’t explained his departure. He remembered Johnny’s silence, the way he went back home and wouldn’t let anyone visit for a couple of days, despite how long Yuta and Kun sat in his yard and yelled at him to open his window. He remembered the way Johnny had refused to crumble, standing taller instead, working harder, being kinder. 

Kun didn’t know if he had that strength.

Johnny made a noise, dipping his hand down to stroke Chickadee’s head with his fingertip. “You don’t have to be strong, Kun,” he said. Kun hadn’t realised he’d spoken aloud. “You’ve been the strong one for the past month now. You can cry if you want to, if you need to. Besides, Chickadee doesn’t need you to be strong, she needs you to be gentle.”

She was still wriggling around in the palm of his hands, and he knew that soon he’d have to place her back down so that her mother could feed and groom her again, but for now she was all that was tethering him to the world. The tiny, squirming kitten in his palms and Johnny’s hand on his shoulder.

  
-

  
Kun knew logically that the first month would be the hardest.

His pillows still smelt like Ten, there were still small fingerprints on the glass of the kitchen window, where Ten had pressed against the ledge to peer out at the stars. The piano looked lonely again, and Kun couldn’t bring himself to sit down at the bench and play. The only other hands that had touched the keys were Ten.

“Don’t you think I’m being dramatic?” he asked Yuta one evening. They were sat on his porch, watching Chibi ransack the street in search for the ball Yuta had thrown into a neighbour’s hedge.

Yuta just shrugged, taking a sip of his beer. “Just because it was brief doesn’t mean it wasn’t real. Ten’s a great guy; I can see why you feel the way you do. Besides, he lived with you. It’s not like you went on one date a week for four weeks, you were together night and day for twenty-eight days in a row. That’s intense for two strangers. It makes sense that your home feels different without him in it.”

Kun grimaced. “I was hoping you’d tell me I’m being ridiculous and that I need to pull myself together.”

Yuta nudged their shoulders together. “You spend most of your life helping pull other people back together. You can let yourself slip for a while, man. We’re here to help.”

  
-

  
With nothing else to do, he dedicated his time to redrafting his novel. There was a purpose in it now, a need to finish it, to get it into the world so that he could stop staring at it and remembering evenings sat with Ten as they watched movies and Kun ignored his half finished chapters. 

Things picked up, but his mood didn’t brighten. He’d been right about Ten’s ghost; he saw it everywhere. Walking in the hills, eating omelettes in his back garden, playing with Chibi at Jaehyun’s house, bottle-feeding the lambs at Johnny’s farm.

And then three weeks after he left, he called.

“I have a therapist now.”

“Oh,” Kun said. “That’s great news.”

“How are you?”

“Fine,” he said hollowly. “How are you?”

“I’m okay. Getting better, I suppose, though it’s slower than I thought it would be. I expected a lot to have happened by now, but it turns out that things don’t fast-track once you realise they’re there.”

“Yeah,” Kun said, not quite following. He was lost somewhere in Ten’s honeyed voice, his sweet, almost teasing tone.

“So my therapist is nice. I think she wants to peg me, but that’s no surprise. She said that I can talk to her long distance too, if I need to, since she’s happy to hold appointments over skype and stuff. I’ve also found a studio that seem happy to take me on as a teacher for younger kids – you know, where the choreo isn’t too tough. They said if I do well and continue with physiotherapy that I could kind of grow a career out of it, but I’ll have to see how it goes. One step at a time, as you said.”

“Yeah,” Kun said. Summer was just beginning to end, and the days were shortening. It was getting dark, a couple of stars out already, and Kun couldn’t help but hurt at the way Ten was flourishing while Kun had been left to decay. “That’s all great news, Ten. I’m glad things are going so well for you.”

“Thank you,” Ten said, voice warm. “And you?”

“Things are the same.”

“I thought they might be,” he teased. “Do you miss me?”

Kun squeezed his eyes shut. He knew it wasn’t intentional, but it felt like Ten was trying to torture him. “Sure I do,” he said as gently as possible. “But I’m sure Doyoung is happy to have you home.”

Ten made an unidentifiable noise, and when he next spoke, he sounded a little frustrated. “I’m moving out, actually.”

Kun opened his eyes. “You are?”

“Yeah.”

“What happened? Is Doyoung okay? Have the two of you had an argument?”

“No, nothing like that. It’s just – he’s gonna be looking for a new place soon anyway, and I realised that I wasn’t happy living there either, that it’s time for me to try something different, slightly more laid back. I have a placed lined up, but the housemate is being really stubborn.”

“Why?”

“I’m not sure. I think he might be a little stupid, but it’s hard to say. I guess that when I see him next I’ll have to talk to him directly since he isn’t picking up on any of my hints.”

“That sounds tough,” Kun said. He thought of Ten living with a stranger, and he wanted the ground to swallow him. “I hope things work out for you.”

“Thanks, Kun. Hey, I have to go, Sicheng just got here – I’ll talk to you soon, okay?”

“Okay, Ten. Take care.”

“You too, honey. Speak soon.”

Kun hung up and went upstairs to lie face down on his bed.

  
-

  
He woke up at some bewildering period in the dead of night, his phone ringing incessantly. He reached for it blindly. “Yeah?”

“Why is this the one time you actually lock your front door? Get your ass down here and let me in.”

There was a definite lag between the words and Kun realising what they meant, then another, second wave where he realised it was Ten on the phone.

Ten was here.

Ten was _here._

Kun scrambled off the bed, oddly relieved he was still fully clothed, and ran to unlock the door. 

Ten was stood on the porch, his hair blonde, his skin golden under the gentle hue of the summer stars. “Hey,” he said. “Have you already named the cat?”

“Chickadee,” Kun said faintly. “I don’t pick her up for another month or so yet though.”

“That’s good, we have to catproof the house first. There’s a lot of little holes she could get stuck in.”

“We?”

“Sure,” Ten said, pushing past and into the house. He brought a case with him, one that Kun stared at mutely, uncomprehending. “Daddy and Papa share fatherhood, and that goes for the litter tray to moving the couch away from the air conditioning unit so that she can’t get wedged in between.” He turned around. “So? Aren’t you happy to see me?”

“What time is it, Ten?”

“A little after two. I was meant to come tomorrow with Sicheng and Taeil, but I couldn’t wait. They’re gonna join us in the morning and bring the rest of my stuff.”

Kun knees felt weak. His pulse was in his throat. “I don’t understand.”

Ten smiled, small and fond. “I know you don’t, Kun. You’re an idiot.”

“Hey,” he said weakly. “That’s mean.”

“I’m just stating facts. You’re really fucking dense when you want to be, Kun, a literal himbo. It’s a good job you’re the most attractive man I’ve ever been in love with. The only one, actually.”

He felt like he was going to fall on his ass. “Huh?”

Ten met his gaze head on. “I’m in love with you.”

“I don’t…”

“You made me feel whole again,” Ten said. His nose scrunched in the tell-tale way it did before he started to cry, but he was still smiling. “What’s the point of finding out where I’m happiest and then leaving? I don’t want to go.”

“Winter here is miserable,” was all Kun could think to say. There were no thoughts, just a faint buzzing noise echoing through his head. “It’s muddy and dark and cold.”

“You’ll need someone to keep you warm then, won’t you?” Ten asked. At Kun’s silence, his smile began to falter. “Come on Kun, I’ve really taken a chance here, don’t leave me dangling. Tell me if you want me or not.”

“Want you?” Kun echoed. “Of course I want you, Ten.”

“Do you love me?”

He felt his eyes begin to prickle. “Of course I love you.”

“Do you want me to stay?”

“I want you to do whatever will make you the happiest.”

“I know, but what do _you_ want? You’ve never told me that. You’ve never been honest about your feelings towards me – I know it was out of concern or whatever, but now I need to know. I’m tired of waiting around for you to be honest about this and admit what you want.”

“What I want?” Kun stared at Ten. “You.”

Ten smiled, knowing and indulgent. “What a coincidence, Qian Kun. I want you too.”

Nothing was sinking in. It was all rebounding off Kun like rubber bullets. “You do?”

Ten shook his head, smile growing. “No wonder your head is so big, your skull must be twenty inches thick.” He stepped forward, put his hands on either side of Kun’s face. “I’m in love with you, Kun. I want to be here with you. I want to wake up with you holding me. I want us to eat omelettes together. I want to teach kids how to pirouette and come home to find you playing the piano with our cat at your feet. I want you to want me too, despite the fact that I’m not who I was. I don’t think I’ll ever be that person again, but hopefully I can be someone else.”

“I didn’t know you then,” Kun said. He’d seen the videos, the clips of Ten performing, but that wasn’t the Ten he knew. His hands found their way to Ten’s waist. He still smelt of incense, warm and spicy and welcoming. Kun felt like he was in another dimension, one where the midnight stars hung like diamonds, dull in comparison to the shine of Ten’s happiness. “I know you now, as you are, and I love you now, as you are. I want you to stay, Ten.”

Ten kissed him. “Then I will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to say a huge thank you to everyone for reading and especially to those who cheer me on with comments and bookmark notes etc! I love Ten so much, my fellow pisces baby, and I was really concerned that this wasn't going to do him or Kun justice, but you guys gave me the confidence to keep posting! I really love you all so very much <3 and I hope you're ready for part two, which will be coming soon! I'm sure you can guess who it will be about hehe xo


End file.
